scholarly journals Alcohol Harms over a Period of Alcohol Policy Reform: Surveys of New Zealand College Residents in 2004 and 2014

Author(s):  
Kypros Kypri ◽  
Brett Maclennan ◽  
Jennie Connor

Background: We estimated the change in the prevalence of harms attributed by students to their drinking and to others’ drinking, over a decade of concerted effort by university authorities to reduce antisocial behaviour and improve student safety. Interventions included a security and liaison service, a stricter code of conduct, challenges to liquor license applications near campus, and a ban on alcohol advertising. Methods: We used a pre-post design adjusting for population changes. We invited all students residing in colleges of a New Zealand University to complete web surveys in 2004 and 2014, using identical methods. We estimated change in the 4-week prevalence of 15 problems and harms among drinkers, and nine harms from others’ drinking among all respondents. We adjusted for differences in sample sociodemographic characteristics between surveys. Results: Among drinkers there were reductions in several harms, the largest being in acts of vandalism (7.1% to 2.7%), theft (11% to 4.5%), and physical aggression (10% to 5.3%). Among all respondents (including non-drinkers), there were reductions in unwanted sexual advances (14% to 8.9%) and being the victim of sexual assault (1.0% to 0.4%). Conclusion: Alcohol-related harm, including the most serious outcomes, decreased substantially among college residents in this period of alcohol policy reform. In conjunction with evidence of reduced drinking to intoxication in this population, the findings suggest that strategies to reduce the availability and promotion of alcohol on and near campus can substantially reduce the incidence of health and social harms.

Author(s):  
Kypros Kypri ◽  
Brett Maclennan ◽  
Kimberly Cousins ◽  
Jennie Connor

Background: Responding to high levels of alcohol-related harm among students, a New Zealand university deployed a security and liaison service, strengthened the Student Code of Conduct, increased its input on the operation of alcohol outlets near campus, and banned alcohol advertising on campus. We estimated the change in the prevalence of alcohol consumption patterns among students at the university compared with other universities. Methods: We conducted a controlled before-and-after study with surveys in residential colleges at the target university in 2004 and 2014, and in random samples of students at the target university and three control universities in 2005 and 2013. The primary outcome was the prevalence of recent intoxication, while we analysed drinking per se and drinking in selected locations to investigate mechanisms of change. Results: The 7-day prevalence of intoxication decreased from 45% in 2004 to 33% in 2014 (absolute difference: 12%; 95% CI: 7% to 17%) among students living in residential colleges, and from 40% in 2005 to 26% in 2013 (absolute difference: 14%; 95% CI: 8% to 20%) in the wider student body of the intervention university. The intervention effect estimate, representing the change at the intervention university adjusted for change at other universities (aOR = 1.30; 95% CI: 0.89 to 1.90), was consistent with a benefit of intervention but was not statistically significant (p = 0.17). Conclusion: In this period of alcohol policy reform, drinking to intoxication decreased substantially in the targeted student population. Policy reforms and coincidental environmental changes may each have contributed to these reductions.


2000 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter C. Mancall ◽  
Paul Robertson ◽  
Terry Huriwai

Objective: To document aspects of the history of alcohol use among Maori, with a particular focus on the period from 1840 to 1872 and to identify potential use of this knowledge in the development of strategies for the prevention and treatment of alcohol-related harm among Maori in contemporary New Zealand. Method: A survey of the surviving documentation about alcohol in nineteenth-century New Zealand; materials were predominantly drawn from the writings of pakeha (non-Maori) missionaries, officials and travellers, as well as available statistical records. Results: Analysis of early written historical records suggests significant variation in the response of Maori to the introduction of alcohol in different parts of New Zealand during the period following European contact. Conclusions: One stereotype that has arisen suggests Maori have been incapable of and/or unable to manage the production and use of alcohol. On the other hand, another commonly held belief has been that Maori supported abstinence or ‘resisted alcohol’ because they recognised its ‘ruinous nature’ and because it was contrary to traditional custom and practices. Historical information indicates that the Maori response to the introduction of alcohol was in fact diverse and for much of the nineteenth century alcohol was non-problematic for many Maori. This reinterpretation of the historical record can potentially empower contemporary Maori to take greater responsibility for the use of alcohol. It also challenges the negativity of the stereotypes generated by historical misinformation.


2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 254-268
Author(s):  
Claire Liu ◽  
John S. Hull

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of an exploratory research paper undertaken in Auckland, New Zealand which focused on the Approved Destination Status (ADS) inbound tour operators’ understanding of the Chinese market and their strategies for developing Auckland as a sustainable destination. Design/methodology/approach – Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten managers out of the 25 registered ADS inbound tour operators. The qualitative responses were coded and analysed using pattern identification and categorisation of emergent themes. Findings – The findings profile New Zealand ADS inbound operators, summarise their knowledge of the Chinese market in terms of visitor expectations and characteristics, present the operator’s perceptions of Qualmark quality accreditation scheme and ADS Code of Conduct, and demonstrate the quality management initiatives they have developed in addition to addressing the issues within the Chinese market operation. Originality/value – The study provides implications for destination marketers and tour operators in terms of the sustainable operation of the growing Chinese market.


2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 619-631
Author(s):  
Katariina Warpenius ◽  
Pia Mäkelä

Aims/materials: This reflection piece reviews some of the key results and conclusions from the book Näin Suomi juo ( This is how Finns drink, 2018), based on the Finnish Drinking Habits Survey. Our aim was to go through the results taking the perspective of prevention workers and policymakers: how could they benefit from the scientific findings when tackling alcohol-related harm? Results/reflections: The reflections displayed in this article provide some useful arguments and justifications for population-level alcohol policy in the controversial alcohol policy debate. Harms do not only arise among the heaviest drinkers, and efficient methods to prevent harm may be found among the prevention efforts that apply to populations rather than only to the heaviest drinkers. The article also illustrates how the results from a population survey can be used in order to identify specific challenges and solutions for alcohol prevention in a given population. The results help in identifying the population groups and situations with an elevated risk of alcohol-related harm and in characterising the drinking patterns and social situations in which drinking takes place in these vulnerable parts of the population. Conclusions: The review illustrates that a many-sided understanding of alcohol consumption and the related harm, based on survey results, is more far-reaching in terms of prevention and policy than a knowledge base built solely on register data on the development of alcohol consumption and harm. For example, the respondents’ drinking patterns are linked not only to their attitudes and risk perceptions but also to what people consider to be appropriate means to reduce alcohol use and the related harm in terms of alcohol policy, informal social control and people’s life management.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Ethan McKenzie

<p>In what many commentators have characterised as a contradictory trajectory, a number of people involved in radical anti-state activism, which defined New Zealand from the late 1960s to the 1980s, became consultants on biculturalism for government agencies by the late 1980s. These consultants ran seminars for Pākehā public servants on the history and contemporary impact of Māori oppression under colonialism; Māori language, culture, and protocol; and the proposed future of the Crown-Māori relationship. This thesis uses genealogy and case study methodology to track the emergence of bicultural consultancies, their ideology and techniques, and their role in Māori policy reform beginning in the late 1980s. It aims to reveal the connections and disjunctions between the goals of anti-state activists active from the late 1960s to the 1980s, and the bicultural consultancies which emerged by the late 1980s.  Māori anti-racist and anti-state activists and their Pākehā allies skilfully leveraged the state by invoking the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi to call for a new partnership between Māori and the state, a partnership that by the 1980s was officially termed biculturalism. The public sector, which was identified as institutionally racist by activists, was an important focus of this activism. Activists demanded that Pākehā-dominated government departments be reformed to better reflect and serve Māori. The state’s response to these demands, beginning in earnest with the 1988 policy paper Te Urupare Rangapu and additionally sustained by the precepts of so-called ‘bicultural’ or ‘Treaty’ issues, created the demand for consultants to assist with reforming Māori policy making and delivery, and by extension, those public servants that would be responsible for the success of these reforms. While bicultural consultants were still working with anti-racist ideas and frameworks, the ascendancy of bicultural and Treaty discourses by the end of the 1980s somewhat obfuscated the ontologies of race and institutional racism in their work.</p>


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