Consumption of different alcoholic beverages as predictors of local rates of night-time assault and acute alcohol-related morbidity

Abstract

here has been considerable academic and media interest in recent times in T the allegedly beneficial effects of specific varieties of alcoholic drinks. A study published in The Lancet in 1995' purported to demonstrate that wine drinkers lived longer than beer or spirit drinkers, even when potentially confounding sociodemographic factors were allowed for. Laboratory studies have indicated that red rather than white wine contains ingredients (clearly not alcohol) which are effective in reducing blood lipoprotein levels? Other studies have found that red grape juice is equally efficacious in this regard.3There are considerable demographic and behavioural differences between persons who consume different beverages that may also account for such findings. Wine drinkers are more likely to be older, female, educated, affluent, to drink socially at private homes, drink less frequently and less per occasion than beer or spirit drinker^.^,^ They are also more likely to be healthy6 and less likely to drink and drive.5 It is hard, therefore, to sustain the argument that the apparently beneficial effects of wine consumption are solely explicable by a biological mechanism. This is particularly so considering recent evidence that health benefits are more likely to be conferred on drinkers who space out their drinks over the week rather than binge.' The former pattern is more usual among wine drinkers and the latter among beer and spirit drinkers5 (It is unclear whether these drinking patterns apply to both consumers of bottled wine and cask wine, a central distinction for the present paper.) A recent review of ecological, case-control and cohort studies contrasting the different alcoholic beveragesu concluded that the beneficial effects of alcohol are not peculiar to, or more marked in, any particular beverage variety.The debate about whether wine should be regarded as, in essence, a health drink has taken on particular significance in Australia since early 1994 when a national inquiry was AbstractObjective: To determine whether population levels of consumption of some alcoholic beverages are more closely associated with levels of harm than others, particularly if consumption of cask wine is more strongly related to rates of acute alcohol problems than consumption of bottled wine as a consequence of the extremely low rates of federal tax levied on the former. Method: A database of alcohol consumption and related problems was established for 130 areas of Western Australia. Demographic and economic data for these areas were included from the 1991 census. Empirically derived assumptions regarding the mean wholesale price of cask and bottled wine were utilised. Regression analyses examined the extent to which the consumption of different alcoholic beverages predicted levels of major varieties of harm. Results: Only cask wine and high-strength beer consumption were significantly associated with rates of night-time assault; consumption of all beverage varieties except bottled wine was significantly associated with rates of acute alc...

Trends in alcohol‐attributable hospitalisation in the Northern Territory, 1998–99 to 2008–09

“…This comparison shows that while the two estimates are broadly comparable, regular strength beer, cask wine and fortified wine were underestimated by the survey method, probably reflecting the difficulty of sampling high risk drinkers in household surveys. Previous research has demonstrated that high local per capita consumption of these beverages is most likely to be associated with high local rates of serious alcohol-related harm (Stockwell et al, 1998;Gray et al, 2000). The comparison also suggests that spirit consumption tends to be slightly underestimated by the survey method employed.…”

“…Gray, 2000) as well as for numerous local, regional and jurisdiction-wide monitoring exercises (e.g. Stockwell et al, 1998;. In the present study, accurate trends in population levels of alcohol consumption after the financial year 1995/1996 were only possible for Western Australia and the Northern Territory (Queensland has only recently re-started data collection).…”

“…This has been found to be the case in Australia at the local area level (e.g. Stockwell et al, 1998;Stevenson et al, 1999), at the state and territory level (e.g. Chikritzhs et al, , 2000Matthews et al, 2002), at the national level (e.g.…”

Does Beverage Type and Drinking Context Matter in an Alcohol-Related Injury? Evidence from Emergency Department Patients in Latin America.

“…For instance, the least taxed beverages in the U.S. (Rogers and Greenfield, 1999) and Australia (Stockwell et al, 2008), beer and cask wine respectively, are exactly those considered most associated with alcohol-related harms in each country. Moreover, in the LAC region, alcohol-advertising restrictions are commonly distinguished by beverage types but are not grounded on the scientific evidence available on the harmful effects of each type of alcoholic beverage (Pechansky et al, 2006).…”

The public health and safety benefits of the Northern Territory's Living with Alcohol programme

“…Literature reviews have repeatedly identified raising the price of alcohol as one of the most consistently effective policy interventions available to government [9,10]. A further increase in the price of cask wine was introduced in July 1995 as a consequence of concern about excessive drinking associated with this cheapest of alcoholic beverages [11].…”