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Wine, beer or spirits? Europeans can’t kick their traditional drinking habits
Whether it is the French penchant for wine, German fondness for beer or a shot or two of sprits in the Baltics, European countries can’t seem to kick their traditional drinking habits, researchers have found.
A study looking at drinking patterns across Europe from 2000 to 2019 has found little sign of countries shifting their preferred type of alcoholic beverage, prevalence of drinking, or boozing behaviours such as binge drinking.
“This shows that cultural factors such as traditional beverage preferences, social norms around drinking, and historical consumption patterns contribute significantly to the stability of drinking patterns,” said Daniela Correia, lead author of the research from the World Health Organization (WHO) regional office for Europe.
“For instance, wine has been a staple in Mediterranean countries for centuries, while beer has deep roots in central European countries,” she said.
Writing in the journal Addiction, Correia and colleagues report how they looked at drinking patterns in EU countries, as well as Iceland, Norway and Ukraine, for 2000, 2010, 2015 and 2019.
The team used data from the WHO global monitoring system on alcohol and health, which draws on figures from official records around sales, taxation and production and other factors, together with country-level surveys. The researchers also looked at measures of alcohol-related harms.
The analysis revealed six clusters of alcohol drinking patterns in Europe in 2019. One was wine-drinking, encompassing countries such as France, Greece and Sweden, while another cluster was formed by countries with a high consumption of beer, a relatively low consumption of spirits and the highest consumption by tourists, with Austria, Denmark and Germany among them.
While the UK was not included in the analysis, Dr Jürgen Rehm – a co-author of the research at the University of Toronto – said data suggests it would fall in the same cluster as Germany.
The team say wine-drinking countries had the lowest rates of alcohol-related deaths and years of healthy life lost in 2019. However, the Baltic cluster with high spirit consumption had the highest rates – experiencing 90 more alcohol-related deaths per 100,000 people than wine-drinking countries.
Rehm said the results contrast with a number of studies suggesting changes in drinking behaviour in individual countries. “We were quite surprised that de facto not a lot changed,” he said.
Rehm said the study has important implications. “Alcohol is part of the fabric of European life, and it’s here to stay. And there’s nothing bad about that. It’s just part of our culture, and cultures don’t change that quickly,” he said. But, Rehm added, it is important that drinking is reduced in order to cut the rate of alcohol-related diseases, injuries and deaths.
“We could have a life expectancy which is two and a half [or] three years more, if not so many people [died] of alcoholic-attributed deaths,” Rehm said. “From a public health point of view, we would like to have less alcohol. And in order to achieve that, we have to come up with means which respect this culture.”
Source: The Guardian, 24 June 2024
See also: Daniela Correia, Jakob Manthey, Maria Neufeld, Carina Ferreira-Borges, Aleksandra Olsen, Kevin Shield, Jürgen Rehm. Classifying national drinking patterns in Europe between 2000 and 2019: A clustering approach using comparable exposure data. Addiction. 2024
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Australia: Major backflip as Anthony Albanese's government announces pharmacists will be allowed to sell e-cigs without prescription
Vapes will be made available at pharmacies without a prescription after the Albanese government struck a deal with the Greens that will soften a proposed retail ban on e-cigarettes.
Health Minister Mark Butler on Monday secured support from the minor party for Labor's contentious plan that originally would have limited vape access to prescription-only pharmacy sales.
While the ban will be in place from July 1 as originally intended, from October individuals will be able to purchase vapes from behind-the-counter following a conversation with a pharmacist about the health harms associated with vaping.
But the Pharmacy Guild has reacted angrily to the proposal, branding the move as 'insulting' and urged the government to change course on the vaping crackdown.
'Everyone wants to keep illegal vapes out of the hands of kids and teenagers, but the Senate wants pharmacists to stock vapes next to children's Panadol, cold and flu medicine, and emergency contraception,' a statement read.
Individuals will be required to provide a form of ID to purchase vapes, while restrictions will also limit nicotine concentration.
Children under the age of 18 will be still able to purchase vapes, but will require a doctor's script to do so.
Greens health spokesperson Jordan Steele-John said regulation of the vape market must ensure former smokers were not incentivised to return to cigarettes.
'That's why the Greens have focused on making sure adults can get access to therapeutic vapes when they need them,' he said.
'We've moved the government from a cost-prohibitive prescription model to a model where adults can pick up a vaping product from their local pharmacy without a prescription.'
Analysis conducted by the Department of Health in January showed a prescription-only model for vape sales could require up to a million new GP visits a year for people accessing scripts.
Source: The Guardian, 24 June 2024
See also: The Australian Government, Department of Health and Aged Care - Proposed reforms to the regulation of vapes, Impact Analysis
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Smoking may be banned in Estonian parks and beaches
The government plans to expand smoke-free outdoor areas in the interest of public health, which means restricting smoking in places like beaches and parks. The aim is to limit the consumption of all tobacco and nicotine products uniformly.
Last week, the government approved Estonia's positions on European tobacco policy. Among other things, the expansion of smoke-free outdoor areas on terraces, in parks, on beaches and in other recreational areas where many people gather was discussed. For example, in Latvia and Lithuania, there are designated smoking areas on beaches that are marked and equipped with trash bins.
Aive Telling, head of environmental health and chemical safety at the Ministry of Social Affairs, explained Estonia's plans: "Today, we are talking about a restriction that still allows individuals to smoke, but in a way that does not harm the health of those around them. This is the most important point in ensuring a smoke-free environment. We must consider others, and this is also about changing societal attitudes to ensure our actions do not harm others."
Piret Väljaots, head of the Tartu Health Service, highlighted concerns about compliance with the restrictions: "Let's say that today, alcohol consumption on the beach is monitored, people are reminded that drinking alcohol on the beach is not allowed. Similarly, it will likely be possible to monitor tobacco use during the beach season. It becomes more complicated with parks, as there is no constant law enforcement presence in public spaces."
Source: EER, 25 June 2024
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