Time to tackle teen drinkers
New laws could soon come into force in Wales which would make it illegal for alcohol to be sold below a set price. Here, Dr Mair Parry, RCPCH Officer for Wales, explains what impact this will have on the next generation of drinkers
DESPITE a significant drop in drinking rates among young people over the past 10 years, in the UK we still rank poorly when measured against our European neighbours.
With as many as 13% of Welsh 15-year-olds admitting to drinking alcohol once a week, it remains a serious and stubborn concern.
What’s more, the pattern of drinking behaviours, specifically binge drinking, can cause longterm and severe health issues as well as negative short-term problems.
This is linked to other health risk behaviours including unprotected or regretted sexual activity, selfharm and thoughts of suicide.
If we’re to avoid an epidemic of related illness, both physical and psychological, the issue must be tackled sooner rather than later.
For these reasons, the Welsh Government’s recent announcement of its plans to introduce minimum unit alcohol pricing comes as very welcome news.
The significant body of evidence, from both the UK and overseas, shows that minimum pricing is an effective method of reducing alcohol consumption – and 40-50% more effective than other measures such as a ban on below-cost selling.
In Wales alone, the evidence suggests that a 50p minimum unit price would reduce the number of units consumed by high risk drinkers by 293 per year, which would result in a reduction of 53 alcoholrelated deaths and 1,400 fewer alcohol-related hospital admissions per year.
We know that early interventions are essential to ensure young people can benefit from the best possible start in life.
As well as the physical health implications of drinking, evidence shows that adopting unhealthy behaviours associated with alcohol at a young age can have a negative impact on a young person’s friendships, relationships with parents and carers and both short and longterm educational performance.
It also often predicts negative social and health outcomes which stretch into adulthood, and later alcohol abuse.
Alcohol is an important part of the complex picture in relation to child health and wellbeing and it’s encouraging to see the Welsh Government seeking a wider range of actions to improve the issues more generally.
Alongside minimum unit pricing, the announcement on legislation included plans to progress the scrapping of the “reasonable punishment” legal defence, an important factor in child protection.
These measures would follow the successful passage of the Public Health (Wales) Bill through the National Assembly in May this year which will outlaw smoking in public places where children and young people play, learn and receive care.
In addition it also places a duty on the Welsh Government to produce a national strategy to deal with the obesity crisis.
These steps all represent significant progress in improving child health and wellbeing, but focus must not be lost if we are to fix the many problems that remain and raise child health levels in Wales to those seen in other wealthy countries; the Welsh Government must ensure that its child health and obesity strategies are bold and ambitious; action must be taken to ensure breastfeeding rates – some of the lowest in the world – are improved; and significant strides must be made towards improving the mental health and wellbeing of society’s youngest and most vulnerable members.
In our State of Child Health (Wales) report we make a number of recommendations based on 25 indicators of health, including calls for the Welsh Government to evaluate all policies for their impact on child health, the provision of compulsory health and wellbeing programmes in primary and secondary schools, and for increased, local support for new mothers.
Action must be taken now to ensure that we don’t fail a whole generation of young people, by restricting their chance to grow into healthy, happy adults.