Advertising of Binge Drinking - Literature review Example

Binge Drinking Table of Contents I. Executive Summary II. Literature Review III. Conclusions and Recommendations References I. Executive SummaryThe academic and scientific literature provide ample statistics, data and arguments to show that binge drinking is a large and intractable problem among young people between the ages of 18 and 24. The literature notes that young people are especially vulnerable, given that their developmental struggles are amplified by a recourse to binge drinking and alcohol, and given that young people especially in college have been shown to habitually, and consistently through time, engage in binge drinking to the degree that a large proportion of the population become dependents. The solution therefore cannot lie in letting students manage their own alcohol consumption. On the other hand, the literature has kept reinforcing the negative life outcomes and health outcomes of binge drinking, even as the literature has also noted that regulations and laws help curb access and therefore abuse of alcohol, and that adults, the general community, and popular media all do their parts in either taming or stoking the uptake of alcohol among young people. Given these insights from the literature, it makes sense to launch advertising campaigns aimed at informing and persuading the relevant stakeholders, namely the school and government authorities and the adults in communities in general, to put in place more stringent rules for access to alcohol among young people, and to put persuade adults and the communities to curb their alcohol consumption and to change the way society in general has come to accept binge drinking. The literature notes that interventions at this level and targeted at the decision makers work. Denying access, or making access difficult, while at the same time drastically regulating the way alcohol is consumed, can change the way young people consume alcohol. The idea is that targeted advertising campaigns that leverage emerging social media platforms and print media can substantially lower alcohol dependence and binge drinking rates among young people, with messages aimed at the stakeholders that have the most potential to effect change, namely the authorities themselves and the general adult community. Assessments of the success of the campaigns can come through targeted surveys, and directly through alcohol sales and incidences of binge drinking and alcohol dependence among young people in college (Center for Science in the Public Interest, 2008; Murgraff, Parrott and Bennett, 1999; Smith and Foxcroft, 2009). II. Literature Review The Center for Science in the Public Interest (2008) cites the NIAAA National Advisory Council to define binge drinking as the consumption of about four drinks for women and five drinks for men over the space of two hours or less, with the time dimension being important to distinguish the phenomenon and make clear that binge drinking involves heavy drinking within a narrow time period. The blood alcohol level too, is an important aspect of the definition, in that such drinking induces blood alcohol level to rise to 0.08 or more. The statistics reveal that binge drinking is a widespread phenomenon especially in college campuses in the United States, with the numbers pegged at about 10 million young people between the ages of 12 and 20 being alcohol consumers at any given month, and of this number about 7.2 million drinkers are characterized as binge drinkers. This was data from 2005, with the note that the numbers have been fairly constant up until that time, at those levels. College enrollment predisposes people to binge drinking. More men than women binge drink. The younger the age of intoxication, moreover, the higher the likelihood of developing dependence for the alcohol, and this is true for that part of the youth population that is enrolled in college. The prevalence of binge drinking at college campuses, on the other hand, is pegged at about 44 percent of the college population, nearing one in two. About half of this population also say they drink to become drunk, and that close to a third say they become drunk at least three times a month, and about a quarter of all college students drink alcohol at least ten times on a monthly basis. Close to 70 percent of all alcohol consumption is attributed to habitual binge drinkers, and that more than 90 percent of all alcohol consumption goes to binge drinking by college students, with less than 10 percent consumption attributed to non-binge drinking. All these data suggest that alcohol consumption in college campuses in the US is almost all of it devoted to binge drinking (Center for Science in the Public Interest, 2008; Murgraff, Parrot and Bennett, 1999). Mortality, compromised school performance, health problems, non-consensual sex and sex-related problems, and the commission of violence are some of the negative impacts of binge drinking on young people. About 1,700 deaths, for instance, are attributed to car accidents from intoxicated young drivers on a yearly basis. The likelihood of young people being tripped by these problems and other related problems as those listed above also rises 21 times for those who engage in binge drinking. The risk of injury also rises, with the statistics revealing that close to one in five students admit to riding in cars driven by intoxicated drivers, and about 13 percent report driving after imbibing five or more alcoholic beverages. The numbers of those requiring treatment for various injuries related to alcohol consumption is about 30,000. Close to 600,000 students are harmed either by intention or without intention as a result of alcohol consumption, and close to 700,000 have been assault victims, for young people between 18 and 24 years old for those who are enrolled in school. Of all rape cases involving students, about 75 percent involved the influence of alcohol. Of the 400,000 cases of sex with no protection, about a quarter involve students in the 18-24 age group who were too drunk, in essence, to know whether they had sex with protection or not. These latter statistics have further implications on unwanted pregnancy rates, rates of sex-related diseases, and other realities of the student experience. Finally, the adverse impacts of binge drinking on the well-being of young people in this age group extend to poor disruptions in the studies of the students; sleep and rest disruptions; damage to their belongings and to other property; sexual abuse; verbal abuse; and physical violence, in rates of occurrence that are far higher in comparison to students who are in settings that have low prevalence rates for binge drinking (Center for Science in the Public Interest, 2008; Wechsler and Nelson, 2001). The statistics further indicate that binge drinking contribute to the prevalence of dependence to alcohol for this age group, with about a fifth of the population deemed as qualifying as alcohol dependents according to set criteria for dependence. Of the close to 20 percent who are alcohol dependents, just five percent seek help, and that just three percent consider seeking help but turn out not to do so in the end. The data indicates that not only is alcohol dependence prevalent, but also that a woefully small percentage of alcohol dependents in this age group recognize that they have a problem in the first place, and even fewer actually seek help or consider seeking help. Meanwhile, several factors contribute to the prevalence of binge drinking, including cheap prices and ubiquitous access; the high prevalence of binge drinking in older adults translating to higher binge drinking rates in younger people; policies that either expressly prohibit or allow alcohol consumption, with the former leading to lower rates of alcohol use and abuse; the presence or absence of controls and regulations for alcohol consumption, with more rigorous controls leading to lower prevalences of binge drinking; and the like (Chaloupka and Wechsler, 1996). All colleges it turns out have crafted interventions to diminish the occurrence of binge drinking, with about a third of all colleges have standing alcohol prohibitions. The overall take is that there are a number of community factors, and regulatory factors, that either promote or reduce the occurrence of binge drinking, and that in a way curbing alcohol dependence and binge drinking in young people in colleges is partly about putting into place tough measures for curbing consumption and regulating alcohol use and abuse for college students, who constitute the bulk of binge drinkers in this age group in the first place. The problem is that binge drinking continues to prevail in spite of the regulations and controls that have been put in place (Center for Science in the Public Interest, 2008; Wechsler et al., 2002; Schulenberg et al., 1996). Literature exists that try to make sense of the phenomenon of binge drinking, such as those that relate binge drinking to development issues for people who in a way fail to make the transition from childhood to young adulthood in a successful manner. The binge drinking reflects a failure in development, and that variations in the way people are either able or unable to navigate this transition during a critical phase in their development translate to variations in the prevalence of binge drinking, alcohol dependence, and non-drinking and non-dependence. The take is that there are models such as this one that try to encapsulate the problem in ways that allow researchers and field workers to come up with recommendations and targeted interventions to reduce the scope and impact of alcohol dependence and binge drinking (Schulenberg et al., 1996). Elsewhere binge drinking and alcohol consumption in general is associated with the way alcohol consumption is portrayed in the media and the popular culture. Here the observation is that the condoning or the positive depiction of alcohol in media contributes to its wider acceptance among younger people, and that in essence the way media, in advertising and in programming, influences alcohol consumption patterns in young people and in the general population too. The effect of promotions and advertising efforts in general is that of contributing to the messages in support of alcohol consumption that is already present in general society, as reflected in the widespread acceptance of alcohol consumption in the general community for instance. From an intuitive point of view this makes sense, given the power of advertising to influence consumption and purchase decisions. This makes sense too, from a psychological development point of view, given that young people are more impressionable, are more prone to advertising messages exerting an influence, and that they take their cues from their elders, who may themselves be alcohol abusers and dependents (Smith and Foxcroft, 2009; Viner and Taylor, 2007). Meanwhile, the literature provides ample support for the earlier assertions with regard to alcohol dependence and binge drinking leading to poor health and development outcomes and poor life outcomes in general, supporting the general shape of the research essentially finding that binge drinking does massive harm to young people both in the short term and in the long term, as adults. Where young people binge drink, for instance, the impact in the immediate and in the long term extend to poorer economic prospects and lower incomes, whereas increased incomes lead oftentimes to virtuous cycles where young adults may have incentives to stay on the wagon so to speak and refrain from binge drinking as a result of higher incomes (Huffman and Keng, 2005; Bellis et al., 2008). Meanwhile, young people who binge drink have been found to later suffer in terms of being excluded socially, and in suffering from lower status in the society as well as poorer overall life and health outcomes (Viner and Taylor, 2007). III. Conclusions and Recommendations The literature tells us that while young people have to go through their own struggles with developing into young adults successfully, and that they have to do this as part of their individual struggles to graduate into adulthood, there is much that regulators, the community in general, and the school authorities can do to curb binge drinking and to save young people from destroying themselves. The literature points to a wealth of evidence showing that for instance, where controls are adequate, and bans are in place, that more young people are prevented from abusing alcohol, developing dependence, and suffering from the negative consequences of that. The literature points to, to evidence showing that where regulations and the law are abundant and are enforced, that young people have more hurdles to cross and therefore are less prone to abusing alcohol. Regulations and control on the part of the authorities make it harder for young people to gain access to alcohol. As has been discussed, access to alcohol is one factor that has led to intractable rates of binge drinking and alcohol abuse among young people and students in particular. The literature too has pointed out that where the community and the general culture is permissive about binge drinking in adults, that young people are more likely to abuse alcohol and to binge drink themselves. Obviously, from these inputs, we can see that advertising campaigns aimed at the general adult community and at school and government authorities can help in curbing binge drinking and putting some structures and rules in the lives of young people, who in a way need those structures and rules (Center for Science in the Public Interest, 2008; Murgraff, Parrot and Bennett, 1999). The ideal advertising campaign that targets adults and the authorities inform and persuade with regard to the positive impacts of controls, and the need for adults to change their behaviors to shield their children from following in their footsteps, Given that young people mimic the binge drinking of their parents and other adults in society, it makes sense for the ad campaigns to try and persuade the general community to change its ways and for adults to curb their binge drinking and dependence. The ad campaign can also inform and persuade school and government authorities on the merits of tougher bans, controls and regulations to make it more difficult for young people to abuse alcohol and to turn to alcohol to manifest their problems with developing into well-adjusted adults. We know that such advertising can have impact, in the same way that advertising has spurred positive images of binge alcohol consumption in general, which lead to more young people abusing alcohol. Advertising has done this, and it is easy to see that the same dynamic can work to lower binge drinking episodes through carefully crafted ad campaigns to the target groups, as discussed above. Informative ads in social media and in newspapers can achieve this. The real test of the success of the campaigns is if binge drinking and alcohol dependence levels drop off, but proxy data can come in the form of alcohol sales, which can be gathered, and targeted surveys and focus groups designed to gauge community attitudes towards alcohol before and after the campaigns. Final assessments of the success of the campaigns can come through changes in consumption patterns for alcohol among college students. If the campaigns are successful, statistics for binge drinking and dependence for young people ought to reflect reductions in incidences over time (Center for Science in the Public Interest, 2008; Murgraff, Parrot and Bennett, 1999). 1 2 3 References Bellis, M. et al. (2008). Sexual uses of alcohol and drugs and the associated health risks: A cross sectional study of young people in nine European cities. BMC Public Health 8. Retrieved from http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/8/155/ Center for Science in the Public Interest (2008). Binge Drinking on College Campuses: CSPI. Retrieved from http://www.cspinet.org/booze/collfact1.htm Chaloupka, F, and Wechsler, H. (1996). Binge Drinking in College: The Impact of Price, Availability, and Alcohol Control Policies. Contemporary Economic Policy XIV. Retrieved from http://tigger.uic.edu/~fjc/Presentations/Scans/Final%20PDFs/cep1996.pdf Huffman, W. and Keng, S. (2005). Binge Drinking and Labor Market Success: A Longitudinal Study on Young People. Iowa State University. Retrieved from http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/research/webpapers/paper_12299_05014.pdf Murgraff, V., Parrott, A. and Bennett, P. (1999). Risky Single-Occasion Drinking Among Young People- Definition, Correlates, Policy, and Intervention: A Broad Overview of Research Findings. Alcohol & Alcoholism 34 (1). Retrieved from http://alcalc.oxfordjournals.org/content/34/1/3.full.pdf Schulenberg, J. et al. (1996). Getting Drunk and Growing Up: Trajectories of Frequent Binge Drinking During the Transition to Young Adulthood. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs 57. Retrieved from http://www.jsad.com/jsad/article/Getting_Drunk_and_Growing_Up_Trajectories_of_Frequent_Binge_Drinking_durin/323.html Smith, L. and Foxcroft, D. (2009). The effect of alcohol advertising, marketing and portrayal on drinking behaviour in young people: systematic review of prospective cohort studies. BMC Public Health. Retrieved from http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/9/51 Viner, RM and Taylor, B. (2007). Adult outcomes of binge drinking in adolescence: findings from a UK national birth cohort. J Epidemiol Community Health 61. Retrieved from http://www.epha.org/IMG/pdf/902_ch38117.pdf Wechsler, H. et al. (2002). Trends in College Binge Drinking During a Period of Increased Prevention Efforts. Journal of American College Health 50 (5). Retrieved from www.researchgate.net/publication/11379313_Trends_in_college_binge_drinking_during_a_period_of_increased_prevention_efforts._Findings_from_4_Harvard_School_of_Public_Health_College_Alcohol_Study_surveys_1993-2001/file/d912f50cbb946e19fb.pdf Wechsler, H. and Nelson, T. (2001). Binge Drinking and the American College Student: What’s Five Drinks? Psychology of Addictive Behaviors 15 (4). Retrieved from http://archive.sph.harvard.edu/cas/Documents/Five_Drinks/five_drinks-1.pdf Read More