1 Karolinska Institutet, Department of Public Health Sciences & Centre for Alcohol and Drug Prevention, Novum
² Department of Community Medicine, Lund University, Malmö University Hospital
³ Centre for Alcohol and Drug Prevention, Novum

Abstract

Awareness of one’s own alcohol consumption, its costs and of limits for hazardous alcohol consumption should be one condition (prerequisite) influencing both individual readiness to change when this is indicated, and the support for and alcohol policy aimed at reducing hazardous consumption in general in the population. The "Alcohol Carousel" was developed within the community alcohol intervention project at Kungsholmen, Stockholm as a simple (and cheap - costs about 50 cents/each) device for self-test of alcohol consumption and for information about hazardous levels of alcohol use. The carousel was to be used for filling in one’s consumption of different alcohol beverages during each day of a week, with information about drink sizes etc., and summing it up . The next step was to assess whether one’s consumption was low, in the middle range or hazardous and to read advice to cut down if hazardous. With the "Alcohol Carousel" one could also easily see one’s annual approximate costs for alcoholic beverages, how many calories (and Danish pastries) one’s alcohol intake corresponded with, and also receive information about local treatment facilities. The "Alcohol Carousel" has been used in public alcohol information campaigns at Kungsholmen, Stockholm (population about 45,000 subjects) , Malmö in southern Sweden (population about 250,000 subjects) and Ersboda primary health care district in northern Sweden (population about 10,000 subjects). At all three sites the goal was to increase the awareness of one own’s alcohol consumption in a population perspective. Different aspects of all the campaigns were evaluated afterwards with questionnaires to random samples of the target population. 40% of questionnaire responders in Stockholm and 52% in Ersboda, where the target group received the "Alcohol Carousel" by mail had used the device for calculating one’s consumption, compared to 46% of the 13% responders in Malmö, where one had to actively picked up the carousel at shops, the alcohol retail monopoly etc. 7% of the responders in Stockholm and 10% in Malmö reported that their consumption was higher than expected, and 4% in Stockholm (corresponding to 600 subjects if true and representative for the population) that they had cut down after the self-test. In all sites the great majority of the responders were positive to the value of public information campaign. The potential value of the "Alcohol Carousel" will be discussed, and also methodological issues. Furthermore, the discrepancy between the rather widespread use of the device for self-test and the public support for information campaigns on one hand and the scientific opinion giving no or little support for information campaigns and with considerable doubt about the value public information about drinking limits must be addressed.

Keywords

Health policy, Alcohol consumption, Information

Contact

Romelsjö Anders

Institution

Karolinska Institutet, Department of Public Health Sciences

Postaddress

Centre for Alcohol and Drug Prevention, Novum

Postcode

SE-141 57 Huddinge

Country

Sweden

E-mail

anders.romelsjo@smd.sll.se

Phone

+ 46 8 585 851 98

Fax

+ 46 8 711 81 85