Intersections of drinking cultures, health and policy
This program of work broadly aims to understand how cultures of drinking intersect with health outcomes, social determinants of health, and policy contexts.
We explore historical and contemporary shifts in cultures of drinking, investigate heavy and light drinking social worlds, and seek to understand the broader contexts (e.g., structural inequalities, generational factors) in which drinking and harms occur.
Not all policies affect individuals in the same way, and not all policies that work for one generation will work for another. This program of work recognises the need for nuance in policy making. We focus our attention on ‘what works’ for reducing drinking and harm in different groups, but also how policies may produce problems, or exacerbate social and health inequalities.
Research Team:
Senior researchers: Amy Pennay, Sarah MacLean, Robyn Dwyer, Robin Room, Sandra Kuntsche, Emmanuel Kuntsche, Gabriel Caluzzi, Cassandra Wright, Mary Walker
Research officers, PhD/honours/ma students: Megan Cook, Daniel Anderson-Luxford, Rakhi Vashishtha, Filip Djordjevic, Chris Cheers
Projects within this area:
Social change and youth drinking: A cross-cultural and temporal examination
Australia, Sweden and the UK have recorded their lowest rates of youth alcohol consumption in 20 years, representing a significant development for public health. Sustained reductions in youth drinking have the potential to reduce alcohol consumption across the population as this generation moves through the life course. However, it is not clear whether today’s youth are simply delaying the age at which they begin heavy drinking or whether they will continue drinking less as adults. The overarching aim of this DECRA is to explore the cultural status that alcohol holds for abstinent and light drinking youth using qualitative methods, in particular:
a) how the cultural status of alcohol for abstinent and light drinking youth varies across cultural contexts (focusing on case examples from Australia, Sweden and the UK), and
b) whether and how the cultural status of alcohol for abstinent and light drinking youth in Australia varies over time as they move into young adulthood.
Understanding the cultural differences and alcohol trajectories for abstinent and light drinking youth is needed to support the development of strategies to sustain these trends through informed social policy, potentially decreasing alcohol-related harm for an entire generation.
Researchers: Amy Pennay, Jukka Törrönen, John Holmes, Gabriel Caluzzi
Funder: Australian Research Council (Discovery Early Career Researcher Award)
Understanding heavy alcohol consumption cultures among nurses and lawyers and investigating frames for intervention
The project, which has received $237,000 in Government-funding through an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant, could ultimately lead to new campaigns and activities to reduce harmful drinking among the two groups.
Lead researcher, Dr Robyn Dwyer, said nurses and lawyers represented sizeable workforces who often worked with vulnerable people. In 2015 there were about 330,000 nurses employed in Australia; and about 71,500 solicitors were practising in 2016.
“Collective drinking such as after-work drinks and networking is a part of the occupational activities of nurses and lawyers and while we know that heavy drinking occurs among these groups, little is known about their drinking cultures that support these drinking patterns,” Dr Dwyer said.
“Research has already shown that large proportions of these two workforces drink more than is recommended. This potentially poses risks to the long-term wellbeing and safety of individual nurses and lawyers, but could also affect their care and support of patients or clients.”
The researchers will conduct the study in natural settings where nurses and lawyers drink together. This will allow the team to collect new knowledge on the cultural and social practices, meanings, and settings that shape heavy drinking among nurses and lawyers, which will help identify opportunities for drinking culture change within the two occupational groups.
Dr Dwyer said the focus on drinking cultures within subgroups of the population is a newly emerging and important complement to population or individual-level approaches to reducing alcohol-related harms. She said the approach has been spearheaded by the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) and this study is the first time the approach has been applied to understanding drinking among nurses and lawyers.
The project is a collaboration between researchers at CAPR and Monash University, in partnership with the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth), Eastern Health, the Nursing and Midwifery Health Program Victoria and Jarryd Bartle Consulting (JBC).
Researchers: Dr Robyn Dwyer, CAPR, Dr Amy Pennay, CAPR, Dr Michael Savic, A/Prof Sarah Maclean, CAPR, Prof Robin Room, CAPR, Dr Rowan Ogeil, Prof Dan Lubman, Mr Jarryd Bartle, Jarry Bartle Consulting
Partner Organisations: VicHealth, Eastern Health, Nursing and Midwifery Health Promotion Victoria, Jarryd Bartle Consulting
Alcohol and tobacco use among lesbian, bisexual and queer identifying women
This project aims to examine practices of alcohol and tobacco use among lesbian, bisexual and queer-identifying (LBQ) women, which are considerably higher compared to heterosexual women. By using an innovative longitudinal qualitative approach, this project expects to generate new knowledge regarding the cultural and social forces that shape higher rates of alcohol and tobacco use among LBQ women, and to better understand their impacts. It is anticipated that the project will enhance the capacity of health promotion and policy organisations to meet the alcohol management and smoking cessation needs of this population. Findings from this project should help to alleviate health and social inequalities experienced by LBQ women.
Researchers: Adam Bourne, Julie Mooney-Somers, Amy Pennay, Jennifer Power, Ruth McNair, David Moore, Anthony Lyons
Funder: Australian Research Council (Linkage Project)
Mothers' little helper: Alcohol use in working mothers
This project aims to generate unique insights into the strains that Australian working mothers face in their daily lives and the impact these strains have on their alcohol consumption. Using innovative methods to understand strains resulting from two major life domains, family and work, the project expects to generate new knowledge which can be used to develop interventions to address this important issue. The results of this study can provide significant benefits not only to the quality of life of working mothers in Australia but also has society-wide implications. This is due to alcohol use being a leading avoidable cause for productivity loss alongside other social, community and economic costs.
Researchers: Sandra Kuntsche, Cassandra Wright, Emmanuel Kuntsche, Gabriel Caluzzi, Sherry Stewart
Funder: Australian Research Council (Discovery Project)
Opportunities for, and impacts of, community influence on alcohol licensing: a comparative study of examples in Australia and the UK
The participation of communities in local decisions and policymaking (for example alcohol licensing) is widely recognised as a democratic right and has been promoted in international guidance as an important mechanism for helping to reduce health harms from alcohol. Recent research has identified some examples of community engagement in alcohol licensing in the UK and Australia. However, we have little knowledge of how the unique licensing legislation, policy, social and historical contexts in the UK and Australia shape opportunities for community involvement in, and potential influence over, alcohol licensing decisions. We also know little about how different mechanisms of involvement, for example ‘top-down’ or ‘bottom-up’, might shape who in the community becomes involved in each context, and therefore whose voices are (and are not) heard when alcohol licensing decisions are made. This has implications for the health and social inequalities faced by some disadvantaged groups in relation to alcohol harms.
Using a comparative case study of community involvement in alcohol licensing processes, this research will understand more about how communities can be supported to help limit the health and social harms from alcohol in their local areas. Specifically it will:
- Identify and explore in-depth examples of community involvement in alcohol licensing in the UK and Australia, and the extent to which they are influential on licensing decisions;
- Compare and interpret these examples in relation to their local policy, social and historical contexts;
- Examine which groups are involved in these examples, and who is excluded, to identify potential impact on existing alcohol-related health inequalities within and between communities;
- Make recommendations for policy and practice about empowering communities to shape decisions about alcohol in their local areas, and to reduce health and social inequalities relating to alcohol.
La Trobe Researcher: Filip Djordjevic, Claire Wilkinson, Robyn Dwyer, Joanna Reynolds
Funder: La Trobe University and Sheffield Hallam University
Investigating differences in the way men and women are studied in alcohol research
This systematic review explores the way men and women are researched in the alcohol field, in particular, researchers’ choices around who to study, how to study them, and what implications are suggested for men and women based on these findings. Researchers’ choices around study foci can differentially shape public policy and clinical practice, with important implications for gender equity and treatment outcomes.
Researchers: Megan Cook, Sarah Callinan, Amy Pennay, Sarah MacLean, Gabriel Caluzzi, Alexandra Torney, Benjamin Riordan, Amanda Cooklin
Funder: La Trobe University
From Mainstream to Margins: The denormalisation of underage heavy drinking
This mixed-methods study aims to investigate changes in, and contemporary experiences of, heavy drinking for underage young people in Australia. The project expects to generate new knowledge on whether and how processes of ‘de-normalisation’ are shaping heavy drinking practices and experiences of social inclusion for underage young people. This should advance understanding of the social and structural factors shaping heavy underage drinking practices. Findings can be used to inform policy directions aiming to holistically maximise health and social wellbeing for young people.
Researchers: Amy Pennay, Sarah Callinan, Gabriel Caluzzi, John Holmes, Jukka Törrönen, Klaudia Kepa, Natalie Cerocchi
Funder: Australian Research Council (Discovery Project)
Understanding socioeconomic inequalities in alcohol use, purchasing and harm in Victoria
Drinking and purchasing patterns are not uniform across socio-economic groups in Victoria, and it is well recognised that some groups experience greater harms from alcohol for the same level of consumption. This mixed methods study will involve quantitative analyses of Victorian data alongside in-depth qualitative interviews with Victorians from different socio-economic strata. Findings will enable the development of an understanding of the mechanisms of vulnerability to alcohol-related harms, and subsequently enable the development of sensitive tailored solutions to minimising problems from alcohol across the Victorian community.
Researchers: Amy Pennay, Sarah Callinan, Michael Livingston, Alex Torney, Yvette-Mojica Perez, Klaudia Kepa, Gabriel Caluzzi, Nicolas Taylor
Funder: Victorian Health Promotion Foundation