This EUphact explores the alcohol policies in EU Member States. Alcohol policy is defined as the aggregate of measures designed to control the supply of and/or affect the demand for alcoholic beverages in a population (usually national), including education and treatment programmes, alcohol control, harm reduction strategies, etcetera (WHO, 2007).It focuses on policies that aim to prevent the harm caused by alcohol. For the most part, no special distinction is made between the alcohol policies that aim to prevent health harm and those that aim to prevent social harm.
The most effective measures, in terms of preventing harm caused by alcohol to public health, are population-based interventions. Therefore, this EUphact focuses mainly on this type of intervention and not on treatment programmes. For more information on treatment see Alcohol consumption >> Interventions.
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Alcohol policies are valued differently by different stakeholders. Representatives of the alcohol industry, compared to representatives of governmental organisations and NGOs, are more in favour of educational measures than of regulatory measures such as tax and price measures. Additionally, while industry stakeholders view their involvement in the policy development process as important, NGOs see industry lobbying as a major barrier to effective policy to reduce alcohol-related harm (Anderson & Baumberg, 2005). In this EUphact different opinions are not elaborated further, except in relation to the opposition to the EU Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy (see EU policies and strategies). Instead, the focus is placed on existing alcohol policies and on the evidence for effective alcohol policies. For more on existing policies see EU policies and strategies and National policies and strategies. For more information on the effectiveness of policies see Evidence: effective policy measures.
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Literature and data sources
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