TY - JOUR PY - 2014// TI - Harms to 'others' from alcohol consumption in the minimum unit pricing policy debate: A qualitative content analysis of UK newspapers (2005-2012) JO - Addiction A1 - Wood, Karen A1 - Patterson, Chris A1 - Katikireddi, Srinivasa Vittal A1 - Hilton, Shona SP - 578 EP - 584 VL - 109 IS - 4 N2 - BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Minimum unit pricing is a fiscal intervention intended to tackle the social and health harms from alcohol to individual drinkers and wider society. This paper presents the first large-scale qualitative examination of how newsprint media framed the debate around the harms of alcohol consumption to 'others' during the development and passing of minimum unit pricing legislation in Scotland. METHODS: Qualitative content analysis was conducted on seven United Kingdom and three Scottish national newspapers between 1January 2005 and 30 June 2012. Relevant articles were identified using the electronic databases Nexis UK and Newsbank. A total of 403 articles focused on the harms of alcohol consumption to 'others' and were eligible for detailed coding and analysis. RESULTS: Alcohol harms to wider society and communities were identified as being a worsening issue increasingly affecting everyone through shared economic costs, social disorder, crime and violence. The availability of cheap alcohol was blamed, alongside a minority of 'problem' youth binge drinkers. The harm caused to families was less widely reported. CONCLUSIONS: If news reporting encourages the public to perceive the harms caused by alcohol to wider society as having reached crisis point, a population based intervention may be deemed necessary and acceptable. However, the current focus in news reports on youth binge drinkers may be masking the wider issue of over-consumption across the broader population.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 0965-2140 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/add.12427 ID - ref1 ER -