July 20, 2020 (Toronto) – CAMH is contributing to a new international research project launched in Lithuania that will assess the effects of alcohol control policies implemented on individual and economic health.
The project is funded by a nearly $2 million grant from the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the National Institute of Health. CAMH, the Health Research Institute of the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, and researchers from Latvia and Estonia will work in close collaboration with World Health Organization European country offices to study best practices for lowering alcohol-related harm across Northern Europe.
The researchers expect that the results of this project will add to the growing evidence around the effectiveness of alcohol control policies, which are often assumed to have a negative economic impact.
“Alcohol use is responsible for about 3 million deaths worldwide each year,” said Dr. Jürgen Rehm, Senior Scientist, Institute for Mental Health Policy Research and Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute at CAMH. “But it is very clear from previous data that most of these deaths are preventable by implementing alcohol control policies. Other countries that have implemented alcohol control policies have shown marked decreases in consumption and related increases in life expectancy.”
Lithuania’s experience will be at the centre of the research. Its concrete actions to control alcohol consumption over a short period of time present a so-called ‘natural experiment.’ Lithuania was one of the heaviest drinking countries in the WHO European Region in 2010, with a total alcohol consumption of 15.1 litres of pure alcohol per capita, more than twice the global average. In 2008-2009, Lithuania introduced a series of WHO ‘best buy’ policies: increasing the price of alcoholic beverages, reducing its availability, and limiting its advertisement. In the period following 2014, further bans on alcohol sales in gas stations, major excise tax increases and other WHO-recommended fiscal regulations were put in place.
“While we know that policies such as raising prices and taxes, and restricting marketing and availability are effective in reducing alcohol consumption, the findings of this newly-launched project will help policy-makers to move from what – to understand how alcohol control policies are best implemented and enforced, as well as their impact on people’s health,‘ said Dr. Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe.
The “Evaluation of the impact of alcohol control policies on morbidity and mortality in Lithuania and other Baltic states” project will have three main objectives:
- to measure the effectiveness of the alcohol control policy interventions implemented in Lithuania between 2016 and 2018;
- to measure the return on investment of the alcohol control policy interventions implemented in Lithuania between 2016 and 2018;
- to compare the trends in alcohol-attributable harm in Lithuania with surrounding countries for the years 2010-2020
The findings will be presented at a series of expert workshops and conferences, as well as in peer-reviewed publications and media events.
CAMH has long played a unique and important role in the field of alcohol policy and has worked with various levels of government and local communities in Canada to develop alcohol policies that mitigate alcohol-related harms.
About The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH)
CAMH is Canada's largest mental health and addiction teaching hospital and a world leading research centre in this field. CAMH combines clinical care, research, education, policy development and health promotion to help transform the lives of people affected by mental illness and addiction. CAMH is fully affiliated with the University of Toronto, and is a Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization Collaborating Centre. For more information, please visit camh.ca or follow @CAMHnews on Twitter.
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