Citation

Snoswell CL, Puljević C, Ferris J. Alcohol Clin. Exp. Res. 2019; 43(7): 1373-1375.

Affiliation

Centre for Health Services Research, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/acer.14109

PMID

31081925

Abstract

In the (in press) issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research a study by C. Cherpitel, et al. examines alcohol dose response for alcohol-related injury for 18,627 injured patients from 22 countries, taking into account each country's detrimental drinking practices (DDP) and the restrictiveness of alcohol control policies (using the International Alcohol Policy and Injury Index, IAPII) (Cherpitel et al., 2019). The authors hypothesised that a dose-response relationship would be observed, and that all causes of injury would be greater in countries where DDP was greater and where alcohol policies were least restrictive. Using aggregate data from 51 emergency departments (EDs) from the 22 countries, they found that risk of alcohol-related injury, at all volume levels, was significantly greater in high DDP countries compared to low DDP countries. Moreover, risk of injury broadly followed a dose-response relationship for countries with both high and low levels of restrictive alcohol policy. Although there were some exceptions to these trends (discussed below), these findings provide relevant and important insight regarding the central effect of drinking culture, and the critical role of alcohol policies, in influencing serious alcohol-related harms. The goal of this commentary is to emphasise the importance of this study's findings, discuss the limitations, and highlight the implications. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Language: en