Alcohol Awareness Week Campaign 2015 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. Laura Wilson 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 Alcohol is the second biggest risk factor for cancer after smoking. 40% of adults in Wales drink above guidelines at least 1 day in the last week 24% of adults in Wales binge drink at least 1 day in the last week. (Welsh Health Survey 2013-14) Causal relationship with > 60 medical conditions, incl. Liver disease, cancers, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, gastrointestinal diseases, unintentional and intentional injuries Liver disease is the only premature cause of death still increasing Binge drinking drinking more than twice the daily limit, so 8 units or more for men, 6 units or more for women) 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)

Percentage of Welsh Population (approx) Non Drinker Hazardous Drinking Harmful Drinking Percentage of Welsh Population (approx) 12% 8% 44% 36% Sensible Drinking Potentially Addicted / Dependant Non Drinker Less than half the population in Wales are sensible drinkers. 44% of the population fall into the categories of either hazardous or harmful drinkers

Alcohol and the workplace Around 200,000 people come to work with a hangover in the UK everyday. Decreased productivity Absenteeism Long term health problems

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. 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.

Key campaign messages Know your units Stick to recommended daily guidelines 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 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

What are the current guidelines? At this point ask trainees to complete the Alcohol Units Quiz Sheet. Optional – Ask them to pour their usual amount of wine or spirit into a wine glass or tumbler glass. Use an alcohol unit beaker to measure the number of units contained in their poured serving. Tell them the number of units they poured and relate to the recommended daily guidelines. Or, ask them to pour what they think is 1 unit of wine or spirit into a wine glass or tumbler glass. Use an alcohol unit beaker to measure the number of units contained inthe serving. Tell them the number of units they poured and relate to the recommended daily guidelines. Everyone should have at least two alcohol free days a week.

How can you disseminate these messages? 1.Articles on Intranet or by email. 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. 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 Give example of how we use them and how they can too:

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

Dry January 2016

Dry January 31 days alcohol free. Can you rise to the challenge? Dry January Challenge – league table, toolkit and resources. Competitions, alcohol free social events, raise money. This year we are going to be piloting a workplace Dry January Challenge which will include a league table for some healthy competition, prize drawer and ideas for alcohol free social events....

Alcohol Brief Intervention Training Aims to increase your confidence in raising the issue of alcohol use and motivating and supporting individuals to change their drinking behaviour through brief intervention. A Free 2 hour training course. Open access course in Cardiff on 24th November.

What is an Alcohol Brief Intervention? “A short, evidence-based, structured conversation about alcohol consumption with a client to motivate and support the individual to think about and/or plan a change in their drinking behaviour in order to reduce their consumption” NHS Scotland (2009)

......Could you run the campaign in your organisation? Toolkits are electronic and can be e-mailed to you. Resources can be picked up from Whitchurch Hospital. Laura.Wilson3@wales.nhs.uk Elin.Evans5@wales.nhs.uk Thank them for listening.