Alcohol Awareness Week Campaign 2013 7th November 2013 Alcohol Awareness Week Campaign 2013 Intro: Introduce ourselves and C&V PHT We want to talk to you about the AAW campaign that will be running this year across Cardiff and Vale o and invite you and your organisation to participate in running the campaign in your organisation. AAW is a campaign run by Alcohol Concern to raise awareness of the impact of alcohol on our society and to encourage adults to consider their alcohol consumption. It runs every year around November time. Helen Tunster and Venkata Pemmasani Cardiff and Vale Public Health Team

What’s the problem with drinking? Alcohol misuse is a major preventable cause of poor health and early death in Wales Causes over 60 diseases and is linked to many others Most harm is from regularly exceeding the guidelines 43% of adults in Wales drink above guidelines at least 1 day in the last week 27% of adults in Wales binge drink at least 1 day in the last week 7% of adults in Wales report drink almost every day of the week (Welsh Government, 2013). Alcohol is estimated to be the 3rd highest risk factor for ill health in the EU, after tobacco and hypertension and ahead of overweight/ obesity Causal relationship with > 60 medical conditions, incl. Liver disease, cancers, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, gastrointestinal diseases, neuropsychiatric disorders, unintentional and intentional injuries Liver disease is the only premature cause of death still increasing In terms of the harm to health, we’re not just talking about those dependent upon alcohol (“alcoholics”), most of the harm to health is in those regularly exceeding the recommended limits. Those in managerial and professional occupations are more likely to be frequent drinkers (drink on at least three days a week) than those in routine and manual occupations (Office of National Statistics, 2010)

How to address the problem? Developed a campaign toolkit Supports organisations to run alcohol campaigns in their workplaces Workplace provides an ideal setting to target adults – whether staff or public. Campaigns have been shown to be one of many public health interventions to help people to change their alcohol consumption such as increasing the price, reducing advertisements and delivering alcohol brief interventions. With this in mind, we developed a toolkit to support organisations to run alcohol campaigns in their workplaces (as in picture – or hold up a copy) Workplaces were chosen because they provide an ideal setting to target the adult population because a large number of adults are employed and they spend a significant period of time at work. Also the campaign provides recognises that many organisations want to improve the health and wellbeing of staff and to address the reduced performance and productivity in the workplace associated with alcohol use.

Don’t let drink sneak up on you – have at least 2 alcohol-free days each week Aim: To increase awareness, knowledge and understanding of recommended daily guidelines and the need for 2 alcohol-free days a week to help people make more informed choices about their alcohol use. Strap-line of the campaign is the title. Aim – it’s all about helping people to make informed decisions by providing them with the necessary information.

Key campaign messages Know your units Stick to recommended daily guidelines (men: 3-4 units; women: 2-3 units) Have at least 2 alcohol free days a week Start thinking about having a ‘Dry January’ Cutting down on drinking can reduce the risk of serious health problems and help to look and feel in better shape. Know your units – explain that research surveys show a people do not understand units or know how many units are in their favourite tipples so don’t know how much they are drinking. Important first step is to help people understand how many units they are drinking – unit calculator wheels are good for this which we will discuss next. Stick to guidelines – alcohol is known to cause over 60 diseases including various cancers, stroke, heart disease etc. 2 free days a week: Daily drinking increases the risk of liver disease and dependency Complete days of abstinence give the liver a ‘break’ and reduce risk of alcoholic liver cirrhosis The more often a person drinks the more they are likely to drink when they do drink – thus they are more likely to drink over recommended guidelines 7% of adults in Wales report having a drink almost every day of the week (Welsh Heath Survey, 2013). Dry January challenges people to give up drinking for a month – appeals to quite a demographic of people who are looking for something really big to do. If alcohol has crept up on you, get sneaky and cut back. Try to find activities to wind down and relax that don’t involve drinking on at least 2 days a week and on days that you do drink, try to drink sensibly by using the tips for swapping and nights out at www.Change4Lifewales.org.uk

How can you disseminate these messages? Articles on intranet or by e-mail Remember that successful campaigns rely on more than one method of promoting messages so you will want to try and use a couple of different methods that are to follow. Do you have the intranet in your organisation and can you get in touch with the person responsible for managing it to ask them to put articles on it? Articles provided in the toolkit. Or if you don’t have the intranet, would it be possible to send the articles by e-mail or include in a newsletter? Who would be the best person to send the articles?

2. Poster and / leaflet displays Another way is to display posters and leaflets throughout your organisation – a nice, quick, easy win. You’ll need to make sure the literature is well placed where people will see it

Manned or unmanned in a busy area 3. Information stand Manned or unmanned in a busy area Make it eye catching with posters, leaflets, wheels and beakers Use interactive activities to begin the conversation Signpost to Change4Life Wales. Highlight the pictures at the bottom of stands we’ve done in the canteen of the UHB during lunch times of AAW. Made it eye catching with posters and print outs of various things. This draws people to the stand. We used interactive resources to engage them such as the unit wheels – hold the unit wheels up. Give example of how we use them and how they can too: Ask the person if they’ve seen an alcohol unit wheel before and tell them it is great for working out the number of units in drinks. Ask the person what their favourite tipple is and use the alcohol unit wheel to tell them how many units and calories are in 1 and 2 servings. Tell them the recommended daily guidelines and relate to the number of units in their favourite tipple. Highlight at the end that Change4life Wales has lots of tips and tools for cutting down and give them a booklet if they would like one.

Good way of getting the messages out widely 4. Social networking Good way of getting the messages out widely Provide links to useful online resources in order to reinforce the messages and to support people to change their relationship with alcohol. Our Twitter section offers some tweets to use. Remember to be creative and make your interaction with staff appealing

Evaluation of 2012 campaign Over 90 hard copies of the toolkit were disseminated to multiple departments within 61 organisations 82% were aware of the campaign being run in their workplace 96% understood the reasons for having 2 alcohol–free days a week 93% believed the 2 alcohol-free days a week message was important 65% had begun to consider changing the amount of alcohol consumed following the campaign. People rated the toolkit and resources highly. 100% of organisations used the wheels 95% did poster and leaflet displays 29% did information stands 10% intranet articles 82% aware of campaign – say that the campaign therefore received a high level of coverage in the organisations.

Practice Manager, North Road Medical Practice “Staff were generally quite alarmed at how little 1 unit of wine amounted to, and relating that to how much they drink during the week” Practice Manager, North Road Medical Practice “...surprise at just how much more alcohol we consume than we thought and how fattening it was” - Librarian, Cardiff Libraries Feedback received “All the feedback received said that people were more aware of the size of units and that it did focus the mind on how much drink they consumed” - South Wales Police “Staff were shocked at the units” - Cardiff and Vale UHB

......Could you run the campaign in your organisation? Resources are available for you to take away today. Toolkits are electronic and can be e-mailed to you. Helen.tunster@wales.nhs.uk Venkata.pemmasani@wales.nhs.uk Thank them for listening.