Negative drinking patterns should be modified by reducing heavy drinking occasions and by reducing specific adverse consequences. Positive drinking patterns should be promoted by focussing on safe drinking limits, by educating people for responsible drinking and by encouraging individual choice. They included public health specialists and representatives of the beverage alcohol industry, as well as senior officials from the World Health Organization and the World Bank. The authors of the chapters in the book include many members of that group and others whom they identified. The final manuscript was also submitted for external peer review before being sent to the publisher.
Many different people have an interest in seeing alcohol policies that actually work.
The book consists of an introduction and 15 chapters which are organized into three sections. The first section looks at the relationship between patterns and consequences. Some of these outcomes are clearly adverse, some are neutral, and still others may be beneficial and play an integral role within a particular cultural context. The role of alcohol differs widely between different societies, underscoring the need to move away from a policy paradigm which attempts to impose a uniform solution on a widely diverse world. Measurement of average drinking levels has proven inadequate in addressing the outcomes for a large segment of the drinking population, in particular for those individuals with light or moderate alcohol consumption.