A Review of Alcohol Pricing and its Effects on Alcohol Consumption and Alcohol-Related Harm

Alcohol has a complex relationship with any given society. On one hand, it may have some benefits by providing a means of leisure and socialization and a source of revenue through taxation of its sales while on the other hand; it has harmful effects by being a direct cause of many medical illnesses, accidents and crime. The number of deaths directly related to alcohol in England in 2008 were 6,769, which is a 24% increase from 2001. To combat this rising number of alcohol-related problems, the government has introduced various strategies and indicators in order to monitor the effectiveness of interventions. NI39 is one such national indicator for alcohol-related harm, which measures alcohol-related admissions per 100,000 populations on a quarterly and yearly basis, with the first quarter starting in April and the last quarter ending in March. This rate (NI39) for England in 2009/2010 was 1,743/100,000, which is a 10% increase from 2008/2009 statistics. Furthermore, the NI39 estimates for the first two quarters of 2010/11 are about 942/100,000, predicting a 9% further increase from previous year. In addition, there was an average of 271 alcohol dependence-related prescriptions in England per 100,000 in 2009, costing the National Health Service about £2.38 million. Hence, we can see that the burden of alcohol misuse in England is huge, making it a priority problem in public health. According to economics theory, the demand of a product is inversely proportional to its price, which means that an increase in the price of a product will decrease its demand and vice versa. Alcohol now is 70% more affordable than it was in 1980, which may be related to increasing alcohol misuse. Therefore, pricing has been regarded as one of the central tools in alcohol policy. On 18th January 2011, the government set a minimum price of alcohol for England and Wales resulting in a great amount of discussion on the effects of alcohol price, alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harm. This paper aims to review the current literature and to examine the evidence for an association between alcohol price, alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harm.

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