MONDAY, March 20, 2006 (HealthDay News) -- Restricting alcohol ads and boosting taxes on liquor sales work to cut down on youth drinking, new research shows.
A team at the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center (HIPRC) and the University of Washington, Seattle, reviewed literature on the subject and discussed the issue with experts to determine the most effective methods of reducing youth drinking. They compared strategies such as increasing taxation, restricting advertising, family-based interventions, programs to prevent drinking and driving, and school-, community-, and college-based anti-drinking programs.
The Seattle group found the price of alcohol has a real impact in reducing harmful drinking by youth. They projected that a tax increase of $1 per six-pack of beer would reduce harmful drinking and prevent an estimated 1,490 U.S. deaths per year.
A ban on alcohol advertising would be even more effective, saving an estimated 7,610 lives a year (which would represent a 13.8 percent decrease in alcohol-related deaths), the researchers said.
However, "while a complete ban on alcohol advertising would likely reduce the number of deaths caused by harmful drinking, the relatively low risk of mortality due to low levels of consumption make such a ban hard to justify," study author Will Hollingworth, a research assistant professor of radiology based at the HIPRC, said in a prepared statement.
"Limiting advertising exposure in high-risk age groups, as well as tax increases on alcohol at the state and federal levels, may be more feasible interventions," he said.
The findings appear in the March issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol.
More information
The American Academy of Family Physicians has more about teens and alcohol.
