The recent 63rd United Nations Department of Public Information NGO Conference held in Melbourne focused on improving women and children’s health.
“Advancing global health is essential to the Millennium Development Goals, and you are essential to advancing global health,” said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
The central concern of Mr. Ban’s opening remarks was the need to improve women’s and children’s health “the area where we are most behind”. Simple measures could make a huge difference, he told the gathering, whose activism the United Nations not only valued, but depended upon.
On the agenda was a workshop hosted by Australia on the harms of alcohol misuse. Conducted by Rev. Tim Costello Director of the Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation Foundation (AER Foundation), the discussion and workshop concentrated on identifying community driven solutions to alcohol misuse.
The Alcohol Education & Rehabilitation Foundation (AER) is a unique, independent, not-for-profit organisation with a goal to change the way we drink.
AER Foundation Chairman Cheryl Bart said: “Alcohol misuse has been identified as a priority issue by the World Health Organisation, yet a policy response remains noticeably absent from our own political agenda.”
“We can no longer ignore the significant human and financial cost of alcohol-related harms, which impact upon the physical, mental and social wellbeing of drinkers and people around them. The $36 billion cost of alcohol-related harms demonstrates to government the urgent need for reform in this area” he added.
Research has found that young people and women are at greatest risk of harm from others misuse of alcohol. In Australia every year 24,000 women are victims of alcohol related domestic violence assaults and 20,000 children are victims of alcohol-related child abuse.
Professor Ian Webster of the AER Foundation said, “Much more needs to be done to support our young people, particularly young women, to prevent them from being negatively affected by our current problematic drinking culture.”
A report funded by the AER Foundation, conducted by the National Drug Research Institute (NDRI) at Curtin University, Perth revealed voluntary restrictions on the sale of alcohol in the town of Norseman WA, led to a 17.5% reduction in assaults, a 60.5% fall in alcohol related hospital admissions and a 10% decrease in per capita consumption of alcohol.
The report entitled, Don’t Wake Up Angry No More – The Evaluation of the Norseman Voluntary Liquor Agreement, measured the impact of voluntary alcohol restrictions put in place in the town of Norseman with a population of 857 individuals, 12% of whom are Aboriginal people.
The AER Foundation workshop shared internationally significant findings from its major new research report: The Range and Magnitude of Alcohol’s Harm to Others, Beyond the drinker: Alcohol’s hidden costs*.
“We need to change the way we drink. Australia is a very fortunate nation, yet we squander our good fortune by continuing to sideline the preventative health agenda. Enough is enough,” said Ms Bart.
Alcohol misuse is a significant contributor to a range of health and social issues, including violence, crime, child abuse and mortality, in both developed and developing countries.
The AER Foundation workshop will focus on the disproportionate effect of alcohol misuse on children, young adults, women and Indigenous people.
*The study was commissioned by the AER Foundation to assess harm caused by the heavy drinking of others. It draws on existing and newly developed data, including a national survey of more than 2,600 Australians aged 18 or older conducted in 2008.
Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha
Source: AER Foundation. UN Department of Public Information NGO Conference.
We underestimate or fail to account for the insidious injury that is fetal alcohol exposure and the vicarious trauma experienced by children who witness violence perpetrated by others. Government policy is weakened or suppressed by allegiances to the alcohol industry and the income revenue collected from this drug.
The SA government crack down on violence outside venues that provide alcohol is interesting. The solution is not about reduced consumption, but about trying to control people who become intoxicated and agressive. I think the government believes all humans are sensible adults with well ballanced lives just needing to make better choices about our consumption of drugs. However the advertisements for alcohol consumption seem to have a different message and effect. Maybe we are not able to make our best choices under the influence of alcohol? But try telling that to an intoxicated person, who will unlikly remember too much of your discussion the next day. So maybe choices need to be made before the alcohol is consumed or even made available?