Time for a new strategy to fight alcohol harm
As part of this year’s Cancer Prevention Action Week (CPAW), we have joined 20 leading health organisations in a letter calling on the Government to take urgent action on alcohol harm.
The letter, organised by World Cancer Research Fund, was delivered to the Prime Minister earlier today, and highlights the need for a national conversation to help understand the link between alcohol and cancer.
Alcohol consumption can cause irreversible harm to health, including mouth, throat, stomach, and liver cancer, with 11,900 new cases annually. 57% of men and 43% of women drink alcohol at least once a week, however, the public is not always aware of alcohol’s link to cancer.
Directors of Public Health, who have responsibility for the health and wellbeing of residents in their local area, work in partnership in a variety of ways to reduce the availability, affordability and accessibility of alcohol.
For example, the public health team in Leeds uses data including hospital admissions, A&E attendances, ambulance call outs and alcohol treatment uptake to analyse post code areas in the city in terms of alcohol harms. This information then provides evidence to object to, or ask for conditions around – for example, opening times or off-licence retailing – to be placed on alcohol licence applications.
The Leeds Licensing Committee have also written to the Government to request that health becomes a Licensing Objective.
Victoria Eaton, Director of Public Health for Leeds, explained:
“At the moment, public health concerns alone are not enough to reject a licence application. However, by using a range of data, we have been able to show why applications in particular areas should be rejected or limited to protect – and improve – health and wellbeing, and reduce the unacceptable gap in health outcomes we are seeing between people living in different areas.”
Alison Challenger, ADPH spokesperson for Addiction and Director of Public Health for West Sussex, added:
“It is important to increase public awareness of the link between drinking alcohol and becoming seriously ill with diseases such as cancer. We need a national alcohol strategy in England that includes adding a public health licensing objective, mandatory alcohol product labelling with health warnings, marketing restrictions on alcohol and minimum unit pricing to help reduce the harm caused by alcohol.
“The alcohol industry’s huge marketing machine needs to be regulated much more rigorously so that we are no longer bombarded with the message that alcohol is a safe, attractive product and children and young people’s exposure to alcohol needs to be reduced. There is also now clear evidence from Scotland, where Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) was introduced in 2018, that MUP saves lives, reduces hospital admissions and reduces overall alcohol consumption.
“Alcohol harms individuals and, if that isn’t motive enough, it harms our country’s economy. What’s needed now is for the Government to take action so that we can drive down the increasing, and unacceptable, cost of alcohol harm.”
Kate Oldridge-Turner, Head of Policy and Public Affairs at World Cancer Research Fund, said:
“Thousands of members of the public and many respected organisations – including the Association of Directors of Public Health – have joined us in urging the UK Government to meet its promise about cancer prevention by establishing a National Alcohol Strategy – which has been sorely missing since 2012.
“The need is urgent. Our research shows that only 1 in 14 people know that alcohol increases the risk of cancer, despite it causing 17,000 UK cancer diagnoses every year.”
Sheridan’s story
Mum Sheridan Dixon, 63, from South Tyneside, was diagnosed with breast cancer last August. She had surgery in September at the QE Hospital Gateshead and finished further radiotherapy treatment in January this year. Listen to her story.
Sheridan is supporting the Balance programme in the North East and helping it to raise further awareness around alcohol harms.