Strengths And Weaknesses Of Public Health

Substance abuse isn’t a new thing. Long ago since the start of human history, people have looked for ways to alter our consciousness with the use of herbs, alcohol and drugs.

Alcohol is the most abused licit psychoactive drugs that affect one 's ability to think rationally and distorts their judgement if consumed excessively. Alcohol addiction is an illness arising from prolonged and excessive intake of alcoholic drinks. An alcoholic is a person suffering from alcohol addiction. Prolonged excessive use of large quantities can eventually lead to chronic health diseases like cirrhosis of the liver, anaemia, cardiovascular disease, dementia, depression seizures, gout and alcohol related accidents and crime. Statistics show that 9 million people in England drink more than the recommended daily intake while an estimated 8.697 died of alcohol-related deaths in 2014. According to the WHO worldwide alcohol causes 1.8 million deaths (3.2% of total) and 58.3 million (4% of total) of Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs). Alcohol beverages with varied percentage content are consumed globally during religious, social, cultural events, festivals and other occasions. The use of alcoholic beverages has been an integral part of many cultures for thousands of years (McGovern, 2009). Over the centuries, there have been ongoing measures, research, interventions and policies which are aimed at promoting the moderate use of alcohol with a particular emphasis on preventing or reducing undesired outcomes. This essay will outline the key components of brief interventions in alcohol, the difference in approach with traditional methods of treatment and in conclusion, the

(Alcohol and Public Health,2017) study found the following: Binge drinking is a serious but preventable public health problem.

Alcohol abuse has become one of the principal causes of mortality and morbidity in the United States causing more than 200,000 deaths every year (Hendey, Dery, Barnes, Snowden, &

Alcoholism is a major social issue around the world today. The ProQuest Staff of SIRS Researcher defines alcoholism as excessive use of alcohol that eventually results in dependence, or addiction where the body craves a drug. There are roughly 140 million alcoholics currently in the world, which results in higher rates of crime, abuse, illness, car crashes, and lower productivity in work (ProQuest Staff). According to Dr. Mark Willenbring, most

Binge drinking can have a major effect on crime rates. These crimes can include, physical abuse, sexual abuse like rape, and domestic abuse. When a young person comes out of a club after binge drinking they wouldn’t know where they were and would often go back to anyone’s house, this is when the dangers then come into the situations, they are put into situations that they don’t want to be in but they can’t get out of them because they put themselves into them serious situations. Often this causes more damage in later life, some decide that they can’t take the pain of knowing they have been abused and then commit suicide and the rates of suicide is increasing as the years go on which clearly shows there is a link to binge drinking. If there

Drinking can lead to a lot of things such as teen pregnancies, hospitalizations and worse cases it can lead to death. “100,000 persons die each year from alcohol-related causes: drinking and driving crashes, other accidents, falls, fires, alcohol-related homicides and suicides.” (NCAAD) The amount of horrifying deaths that happen in our everyday life we can contribute a large portion of the to being related in some form to alcohol. Teen alcohol consumption has gotten worse and worse over the years. “Teen alcohol use kills 4,700 people each year — that’s more than all illegal drugs combined.” (MADD) While there are many other

Australia has a well-established and deeply ingrained drinking culture and while most people are satisfied with a few beers on the odd weekend or a glass of wine with dinner, others have become addicted and have developed alcohol dependence. With alcohol dependency now the most common substance use disorder in Australia the effects of this disorder are far-reaching and catastrophic not only for the individual suffering the addiction and their family and friends, but for our government as well who is shelling out billions of dollars annually to address the fallout of this disorder. However, the devastation caused by such addictions may be a thing of the past as Professor Daryl Davies from the University of Southern California has

Drinking alcohol is woven into the social fabric of our culture, and indeed many people enjoy the social and cultural connection of sharing a drink together. However, because drinking is so common in our society, realizing you or a loved one has a drinking problem can be a challenge.  The consequences of alcohol abuse are serious. Alcohol abuse causes extensive damage to your health, your loved ones, and society. It results in thousands of innocent deaths each year, and exacerbates situations involving violent crimes and domestic violence.

One of the campaigns is lung cancer campaign ‘got a cough, get a check!’ it shows the symptoms of lung cancer, saying that if you are coughing a lot or if you cough up blood, neck pain and shortness of breath to see your doctor. This will mean that people can be checked earlier than leaving it for it to just get worse. Lung cancer is the most common cause of death ‘’it is known that smokers and ex-smokers have a particularly high risk of developing the disease: although most lung cancers are related to smoking, 10% of people with lung cancer have never smoked.’’ (http://lungcancercampaign.org/patient-information/). Which links to the smoking

Approximately £8bn and £13bn per year is estimated cost for alcohol related crimes in UK (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, 2010). Around 16% and 22% women and men are drinking more than 14 and 21 units per week respectively, including 29% people are drinking at increasing risk level and around 9% both men and women are drinking beyond high risk levels. Women who are drinking more than 35 units a week and men who are drinking more than 50 units a week are described as high risk drinkers and said to be particular risk of harm (NHS, UK, 2014). Though average consumption of alcohol reached to a peak 11.6 litres in 2004, but it is returned to 9.7 litres in 2012 (British Beer and Pub Association, Statistical Handbook, Brewing Publications, London, 2013). In 2014, estimation of 53% of alcohol drinks are more affordable than in 1980 (HSCIC, Leeds, 2015). Approximately 29% of violent incidents took place in or around a pub or club in 2013-14 and Over 68% of violent crimes occur in the evening or at night (ONS, 2015). Meanwhile in England, alcohol related deaths has risen to 10.1% from 2003 to 2013 and there were estimated 333,000 hospital admissions attributing alcohol as primary or secondary cause (Alcohol educationtrust.org, 2016). Although it is clear that excessive drinking by young people is a

While many people view consuming alcohol as charming, it is indeed detrimental to a person’s health and well-being. “[As of] 2013, 86.6 percent of people ages eighteen and older have drank alcohol at some point in their lifetime…56.4 percent reported that they drank in the past month” (NIAAA). Drinking is the cause of many accident inflicted hospital visits, increases the risk for a plethora of illness, and is a leading cause of preventable death in the United States (NIAAA).

International statistics reveal that Alcohol is attributed to 4% of total mortality and between 4- 5% of DALY’s (1, 2). Rhem et al notes that more than 25% of the global consumption is estimated to be unrecorded, due to lack of surveillance. This variance can create a higher global burden of disease attributable to Alcohol (2). According to the World Health Organisation (2014), overconsumption of Alcohol has been linked to the development of more than 200 diseases, making it the third highest risk leading to death and disability (1). Rhem et al conducted an analysis of the burden of disease attributable to Alcohol. In particular their analysis revealed that the pattern of drinking, volume and quality of alcohol consumed were causally linked to cancer, cardiovascular diseases, liver cirrhosis and injury (2). The study also elucidates the notion that even with evidence based management strategies and widespread acceptance of the harms associated with the drug, Alcohol misuse is a significant issue in society. The net harms outweigh any notable benefits of Alcohol over consumption.

This essay will provide an outline of the effects of alcohol consumption on the health of the nation as well as investigate a range of health promotion strategies aimed to reduce the burden of this issue. Furthermore, this paper will explore two alcohol reductions measures. The first is the behavior change model of the Australian Government’s National Binge Drinking Strategy (NBDS) which has stimulated the reduction of alcohol consumption. It will also look at two rolled out campaigns launched by governments to reduce the high trends of alcohol consumption; ‘Danny Green’s Coward Punch’ and Don’t Turn a Night out into a Nightmare’. Alcohol is an issue because habitual and excessive alcohol consumption has countless damaging health outcomes

Alcohol consumption and abuse as it relates to ‘social drinking’, or drinking copious amounts of alcohol at social gatherings, was the topic of this article. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Laboratory (NIAAA) 43.1 percent of men and 28.8 percent of women 18 and older in the study considered binge drinkers, meaning they consumed four or more drinks in the time span of two hours, within last year. This indicates that many young adults believe they are simply drinking socially, but could over-drinking which can have many adverse short term, and potentially long term, affects. Having immense headaches days after drinking that reduce productivity, and law violations while intoxicated are some examples of how alcohol abuse negatively affects us.