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A historical overview of legislated alcohol policy in the Northern Territory of Australia: 1979–2021
BACKGROUND: The Northern Territory (NT) has the highest levels of alcohol consumption and harms in Australia. Since the creation of the NT Liquor Act 1978, which came into effect in 1979, numerous legislated alcohol policies have been introduced to attempt to address these harms. We present a narrat...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BioMed Central
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8539741/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34686162 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-11957-5 |
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author | Clifford, Sarah Smith, James A. Livingston, Michael Wright, Cassandra J. C. Griffiths, Kalinda E. Miller, Peter G. |
author_facet | Clifford, Sarah Smith, James A. Livingston, Michael Wright, Cassandra J. C. Griffiths, Kalinda E. Miller, Peter G. |
author_sort | Clifford, Sarah |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: The Northern Territory (NT) has the highest levels of alcohol consumption and harms in Australia. Since the creation of the NT Liquor Act 1978, which came into effect in 1979, numerous legislated alcohol policies have been introduced to attempt to address these harms. We present a narrative historical overview of alcohol policies implemented in the NT from 1979 to 2021. METHODS: Using scoping review methodology, databases were searched from 1979 to 2021. Of 506 articles screened, 34 met inclusion criteria. Reference lists of all included articles were searched, resulting in the inclusion of another 41 articles and reports, totalling 75 final documents. Policies were organised using Babor and colleagues (2010) established framework: 1. pricing/ taxation; 2. regulating physical availability; 3. modifying drinking environments; 4. drink-driving countermeasures; 5. restrictions on marketing; 6. education/persuasion; 7. treatment/early intervention. RESULTS: Two pricing/taxation policies have been implemented, Living With Alcohol (LWA) and Minimum Unit Price, both demonstrating evidence of positive effects on health and consumption outcomes. Eight policies approaches have focused on regulating physical availability, implemented at both individual and local area levels. Several of these policies have varied by location and been amended over time. There is some evidence demonstrating reduction in harms attributable to Liquor Supply Plans, localised restrictions, and General Restricted Areas, although these have been site specific. Of the three policies which targeted modifying the drinking environment; one was evaluated, finding a relocation of social harms, rather than a reduction. The literature outlines a range of controversies, particularly regarding policies in domain 2–3, including racial discrimination and a lack of policy stability. No policies relating to restricting marketing or education/persuasion programs were found. The only drink-driving legislated policy was considered to have contributed to the success of the LWA program. Three policies relating to treatment were described; two were not evaluated and evidence showed no ongoing benefits of Alcohol Mandatory Treatment. DISCUSSION: The NT has implemented a large number of alcohol policies, several of which have evidence of positive effects. However, these policies have often existed in a context of clear politicisation of alcohol policy, frequently with an implicit focus on Aboriginal people’s consumption. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-021-11957-5. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8539741 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-85397412021-10-25 A historical overview of legislated alcohol policy in the Northern Territory of Australia: 1979–2021 Clifford, Sarah Smith, James A. Livingston, Michael Wright, Cassandra J. C. Griffiths, Kalinda E. Miller, Peter G. BMC Public Health Research BACKGROUND: The Northern Territory (NT) has the highest levels of alcohol consumption and harms in Australia. Since the creation of the NT Liquor Act 1978, which came into effect in 1979, numerous legislated alcohol policies have been introduced to attempt to address these harms. We present a narrative historical overview of alcohol policies implemented in the NT from 1979 to 2021. METHODS: Using scoping review methodology, databases were searched from 1979 to 2021. Of 506 articles screened, 34 met inclusion criteria. Reference lists of all included articles were searched, resulting in the inclusion of another 41 articles and reports, totalling 75 final documents. Policies were organised using Babor and colleagues (2010) established framework: 1. pricing/ taxation; 2. regulating physical availability; 3. modifying drinking environments; 4. drink-driving countermeasures; 5. restrictions on marketing; 6. education/persuasion; 7. treatment/early intervention. RESULTS: Two pricing/taxation policies have been implemented, Living With Alcohol (LWA) and Minimum Unit Price, both demonstrating evidence of positive effects on health and consumption outcomes. Eight policies approaches have focused on regulating physical availability, implemented at both individual and local area levels. Several of these policies have varied by location and been amended over time. There is some evidence demonstrating reduction in harms attributable to Liquor Supply Plans, localised restrictions, and General Restricted Areas, although these have been site specific. Of the three policies which targeted modifying the drinking environment; one was evaluated, finding a relocation of social harms, rather than a reduction. The literature outlines a range of controversies, particularly regarding policies in domain 2–3, including racial discrimination and a lack of policy stability. No policies relating to restricting marketing or education/persuasion programs were found. The only drink-driving legislated policy was considered to have contributed to the success of the LWA program. Three policies relating to treatment were described; two were not evaluated and evidence showed no ongoing benefits of Alcohol Mandatory Treatment. DISCUSSION: The NT has implemented a large number of alcohol policies, several of which have evidence of positive effects. However, these policies have often existed in a context of clear politicisation of alcohol policy, frequently with an implicit focus on Aboriginal people’s consumption. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-021-11957-5. BioMed Central 2021-10-23 /pmc/articles/PMC8539741/ /pubmed/34686162 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-11957-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Clifford, Sarah Smith, James A. Livingston, Michael Wright, Cassandra J. C. Griffiths, Kalinda E. Miller, Peter G. A historical overview of legislated alcohol policy in the Northern Territory of Australia: 1979–2021 |
title | A historical overview of legislated alcohol policy in the Northern Territory of Australia: 1979–2021 |
title_full | A historical overview of legislated alcohol policy in the Northern Territory of Australia: 1979–2021 |
title_fullStr | A historical overview of legislated alcohol policy in the Northern Territory of Australia: 1979–2021 |
title_full_unstemmed | A historical overview of legislated alcohol policy in the Northern Territory of Australia: 1979–2021 |
title_short | A historical overview of legislated alcohol policy in the Northern Territory of Australia: 1979–2021 |
title_sort | historical overview of legislated alcohol policy in the northern territory of australia: 1979–2021 |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8539741/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34686162 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-11957-5 |
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