Australia: the healthiest country by 2020
National Preventative Health Strategy – the roadmap for action

Key action area 8: Strengthen the evidence base

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‘The importance of strong links between researchers and practitioners that develop understanding of how best to translate research into practice are essential’ (Quote from submissions)

It is critical that preventative health policies and programs relating to alcohol are informed by sound data on alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harm in the Australian population.[64] The WHO has recommended that public health monitoring of alcohol use should include credible estimates of per capita alcohol consumption, derived from alcohol sales data, in addition to well-conducted population surveys of drinking patterns.

There is an urgent need to collect and analyse nationally consistent data about alcohol sales, consumption, outlets and alcohol-related health and safety outcomes. This data will then inform the modelling of safer patterns of alcohol consumption in different communities and settings, and the monitoring of the impact of changes in alcohol policies, alcohol availability and other factors.

Currently, information on levels and patterns of alcohol consumption in Australia is diverse. It can be difficult to identify the key features for purposes of monitoring trends in drinking and related harm, and the possible opportunities for intervention. Unfortunately, some of the most significant and valuable data is not readily available to the public health field. For example, alcohol sales data, while it is known to be collected and analysed by the alcohol beverage industry, is not available for the purposes of the Taskforce, nor indeed is it easily accessed for public health research purposes in general. The Taskforce notes with some concern that continuation of the most accessible datasets on alcohol consumption levels in Australia, collected and compiled by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), is currently under review. Efforts are urgently required to seek the continuation of this valuable dataset. If collection and reporting of this data were to cease, Australia would be the only Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) country not to collect national alcohol consumption data.

There are several important reasons why the collection of alcohol sales data in Australia should be improved rather than abandoned.[64] Such data can be used to:

  • Monitor trends in per capita alcohol use, which is strongly related to adverse health outcomes such as liver cirrhosis, motor vehicle crashes and suicide
  • Facilitate studies of the relationships between changes in the level of per capita alcohol consumption and both population health outcomes and social harms (for example, arrests for assault and public disorder)
  • Provide a benchmark to gauge the accuracy of national alcohol consumption surveys
  • Enable the sales volumes of each beverage type to be estimated at local levels
  • Evaluate the effectiveness of government community initiatives to reduce alcohol-related harm and the effects of liquor licensing changes on alcohol consumption
The collection and reporting of alcohol sales data would entail only a small cost to the alcohol industry, which already provides these data to commercial market research companies.[64] The collection of a range of other datasets will also be important for appropriate planning, monitoring and evaluation of alcohol policies and programs. These include datasets on places of drinking, the duration of drinking occasion, and reasons for drinking; datasets on the harm to drinkers and harm to others, such as police datasets; child and family welfare agency datasets; health service datasets; and a range of other datasets that capture the impact of alcohol on sectors such as local government, fire services and insurance.

Action 8.1
Develop a system for nationally consistent collection and management of alcohol wholesale sales data to inform key alcohol policy developments and evaluations.

Action 8.2
NPA to define a set of essential national indicators on alcohol consumption and health and social impacts by reviewing what is currently available and what is also required.

Action 8.3
Expand the collection of patterns of drinking data to include place of drinking, duration of drinking occasion, and reasons for drinking.

Action 8.4
Improve utilisation of key datasets on the harm to drinkers and harm to others.

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