Issue #7
August 2013
Tena
koutou.
Many of the
ways alcohol affects our bodies are commonly known about. Almost everyone knows
that too much alcohol can damage the liver and cause liver failure or even
liver cancer. But how many people know that alcohol is
classed as a carcinogen and also causes breast cancer, bowel cancer,
oesophageal cancer and throat cancer? And while we often hear about physical
and sexual assaults, injuries, accidental drowning and road crashes when these
have led to arrests, hospitalisations or coroner’s inquests, less attention is
given to the role of alcohol in family violence and child neglect, when these
things happen behind closed doors. Although most people are aware of the advice
about avoiding alcohol while pregnant, because this can harm the baby (even if
this advice is ignored), probably fewer are aware that alcohol can reduce
fertility, increase the risk of miscarriage and premature birth and lead
to impotence in men.
This latest
edition of our update e-newsletter shares findings from some of the latest
research in New Zealand and looks at the impact of recent legislative changes
around alcohol and other drugs. Please feel free to share and forward as
appropriate with your networks. If you have news of events in your local
community with an alcohol or other drug focus you wish
to promote, please send details through to the contact email at the end of the
newsletter.
Mauri ora
The
health impacts of the way we drink in New Zealand
Alcohol
is responsible for more than one-in-twenty deaths of New Zealanders aged under
80, a new study suggests. New research from the University of Otago on the ‘Alcohol-attributable burden of disease
and injury in New Zealand: 2004 and 2007 ’, commissioned by the Alcohol Advisory Council of New
Zealand (ALAC), has just been published. The goal of the study was to summarise
the health effects of alcohol across the population in New Zealand.
For
alcohol-related deaths in the study year (2007), the key findings include:
·
802
deaths of New Zealanders under 80 years of age that were attributable to
drinking alcohol (representing 5.4% of all deaths under 80 years old),
·
43
percent were due to injuries (intentional and unintentional), 30 percent were
due to cancer, and 27 percent to other chronic conditions,
·
The
alcohol death rate in Maori was two and a half times that of non-Maori,
·
Road
traffic injuries were the most common cause of alcohol deaths,
·
The
number of male deaths (537) was double the number of deaths in women (265) in
2007.
·
For
women, breast cancer was the most common cause of alcohol-attributable deaths.
Health
Promotion Agency (HPA) General Manager Policy, Research and Advice, Dr Andrew
Hearn, says the report is a valuable addition to the evidence of the impact of
alcohol on people’s health and as a cause of injury across the population in
New Zealand. The full report can be accessed here. The HPA has also devoted much of its current edition of
AlcoholNZ to discussing the implications of the
research. You can download this either by clicking on the picture or here.
Whanau Pack – Tools for families and parents with
teenagers
The recently published Whanau Pack has proved so popular that a
second print run had to be done to cope with demand.
The Whanau Pack is a free resource
for those working with families and parents with teenagers. It promotes simple
strategies to improve communication and help strengthen bonds between parents
and teens. The resource was developed in Te Tai Tokerau by Northland
District Health Board and features photos of local people and locations.
The
Whanau Pack (click to view online) has been
embraced by a range of community and health providers, including Whanau Ora
workers, mental health and addiction staff, parenting organisations, school
health services and youth workers. Supporting radio advertisements featuring
key strategies can be heard on MediaWorks stations
across Northland. To request your free copy today - click here to order.
2 new posters from the whanau pack project
Designed as
part of the new Whanau Pack project, two new posters promoting key
messages from the resource have now been printed.
Based
around the findings from Youth '07 and Youth ‘12 reports, as well as other parenting research, the posters focus on positive
parenting messages that promote closer communication and bonds between parents
and their kids.
The free
posters are available for health and community organisations in
Te Tai Tokerau
and can be ordered here.
Breast
cancer leading cause of alcohol-attributable death in New Zealand women
The
link between alcohol and breast cancer is one of the newest to be recognised
and probably one of the least well known by the general public. This is despite
the fact that breast cancer is New Zealand’s third most common cancer,
accounting for more than 600 deaths every year, and the most common cancer in
women (Ministry of Health, 2012).
Commenting
on the results of the newly released ‘Alcohol-attributable burden of
disease and injury in New Zealand: 2004 and 2007’ report, co-author Professor Jennie
Connor says the report also highlights alcohol’s important toxic and
carcinogenic properties, and that for many chronic diseases there is no
threshold for safe consumption. More than 30% of alcohol-attributable deaths
were due to cancers, including breast and bowel cancer.
“This
study demonstrates that alcohol consumption is one of the most important risk
factors for avoidable mortality and disease in early and middle adulthood, and
contributes substantially to loss of good health across the life course,” she
says.
More
alcohol-related harm was seen in men than in women,
and in Mâori than in non-Mâori. These differences were largely due to
differences in alcohol consumption patterns.
Download
the whole report here.
Alcohol Facts
We
often underestimate the true extent of alcohol-related harm and costs in New
Zealand. A series of twelve alcohol ‘facts’ were developed by Northland
DHB Health Promotion Advisor Dave Hookway and emailed to Northland networks
each Monday morning over the past couple of months. The ‘facts’ provided simple
discussion starters and explored some of the myths around alcohol-related harm
in New Zealand.
Topics
included standards drinks, alcohol absorption, youth drinking
and alcohol and pregnancy. Each ‘fact’ is referenced
with further information to enable readers to explore the topics further.
“These are great to increase the skill-set of your staff and co-workers – as
well as for conversation starters with friends” says
Dave.
If
you missed out on the ‘facts’ and want a copy, please click here to be sent the summary by email.
Sale
of legal highs faces tough rules
Tough
new restrictions and heavy penalties for those who break them have been imposed on the sale of legal highs. The Psychoactive Substances Bill, dubbed "world leading" by
supporters, came into effect on July 17th. The bill bans the sale of the
controversial and harmful synthetic drugs in dairies, supermarkets, petrol
stations and anywhere alcohol is sold. It also
prohibits their sale to those aged under 18, their advertising at the point of
sale and imposes two-year prison terms or fines of up to $500,000 on those who
break the new law. The law allows for the
products to be sold in licensed stores but puts the onus on producers to prove
the drugs are safe.
Whangarei
police believe some retailers are continuing to sell synthetic cannabis
products and are planning a crackdown to find those breaking the law.
Whangarei/Kaipara police area controller Inspector Tracy Phillips has told
Whangarei District Councillors that she had received tip offs that some
retailers in Whangarei were continuing to sell synthetic cannabis products in
defiance of the ban. Police and health staff will be following up.
Health Promotion Agency (HPA) free alcohol resources.
Two
free resources are available for download online from the HPA:-
The Real Story of Kiwis & Alcohol provides some interesting statistics
about alcohol use and its impact in New Zealand. It includes information on
‘why’ and ‘where’ people drink, ‘how much’ and ‘how we compare with other
countries’.
Alcohol & You - facts &
effects outlines what
alcohol is and what it does to the body, explains standard drinks, social harms
caused by alcohol and benefits attributed to alcohol.
Both
resources can be downloaded for free - either
click on the links or the pictures. Physical copies can also
be ordered from the HPA via their publications ordering website.
2 new resources from Fetal Alcohol Network NZ (FANNZ)
Two excellent
papers have been added to the Fetal Alcohol Network NZ
website
written by two leading Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) experts, clinical
psychologists Valerie McGinn from Auckland and Andi Crawford from Hawke’s
Bay. These papers were requested by families wanting information that
would help them convey to others, the difficult concepts of ‘Confabulation’,
which people usually perceive as lying - and ‘Adaptive Functioning’, which can
be significantly out of sync with IQ.
The FANNZ website features a number of free
downloadable resources covering a wide range FASD topics.
International
FASD Awareness Day – 9th September 2013
Every year on the 9th day of the 9th
month (September 9th) communities across the world come together to promote the
key messages:–
·
that
alcohol can harm an unborn baby,
·
the
effects can last a lifetime,
·
the
harm is preventable, and
·
more can and should be done to improve the
lives of affected people by FASD.
Over the past few years, Northland health and community groups have marked International FASD Awareness Day with a range of initiatives aimed to highlight the importance of women being alcohol-free during pregnancy and whilst breast feeding. These have included flash mobs, Pregnant Pause, community walks and information stalls. Ngati Hine staff held their own event in Whangarei in 2011 and you can view this here. Supporting an alcohol-free pregnancy involves all the whanau. Now’s the time to plan your 2013 event. For more information or resources about FASD Day, contact Christine Rogan.
In the News…
Ethanol akin to asbestos in cancer stakes
New Zealand's excessive drinking
culture is causing cancers with abysmally low survival rates, oncology experts
say. The Cancer Society of New Zealand says Kiwis are only now sobering
up to the link between alcohol and cancer, just as we did more than 30 years
ago with smoking and lung cancer. Strong links between drinking more than
two or three units a day have been established to
deadly digestive tract cancers including mouth, throat, larynx and oesophageal
cancers. There are also strong links between alcohol and bowel, breast
and prostate cancers. Read more…
Time ripe to address alcohol harm
New legislation offers an opportunity
to curb the enormous harm caused by hazardous drinking habits in the south, a
medical officer of health says. A report by Public Health South, published this
month, revealed the southern region has the highest prevalence of hazardous
drinking - defined as drinking patterns that risk physical, mental or social
harm - in New Zealand. The prevalence of alcohol-related presentations was
highest at Lakes District Hospital in Queenstown, with 12 per cent. Read more…
Workers drug test numbers skyrocket
Workplace drug and alcohol testing is
skyrocketing as bosses use the tool to weed out poorly performing staff, vet
candidates and keep workplaces safe. Screening is expanding from
traditional safety-sensitive jobs like forestry to sectors including finance
and government, as bosses move to ensure they're
getting the best staff in tough economic times and intolerance of drugs and
alcohol at work grows. Read more…
Supermarket alcohol sale hours face chop
The booze aisle in your local
supermarket could soon be roped off at certain times.
Councils across NZ are currently considering draft local alcohol policies. A
feature of many policies is a restriction of the hours during which alcohol may be sold in off-license premises. Bringing supermarkets
in line with other off-license premises is one of a number of proposals expected to be considered throughout the country. Hamilton
is just one of these. Read more…
Mother wants butane pulled off shelves
The mother of a Christchurch victim
who died from the toxic effects of butane says she wants butane pulled off
dairy shelves after a coroner found it caused heart problems
which led to the teenager's death. New Zealand Drug Foundation
executive director Ross Bell says he believes there was a lack of awareness of
the dangers of huffing butane by young people and even health
professionals. Read more…
Trade deal will undermine public health efforts
Trade deal will undermine
public health efforts to reduce alcohol-related harm if it limits the scope and
role of alcohol warning labelling. Alcohol Healthwatch director Rebecca
Williams says her organisation has just learnt that trade negotiators are
discussing text for inclusion in the TPPA that could limit the role of alcohol
warning labelling, and this has serious implications for public health in New
Zealand. Williams says
that public health experts have been calling for labelling on all alcohol
containers for years to ensure that consumers have the real facts about the
risks they are taking. Read more…
Worried about your
drinking?.....
Take the free online test here. Or phone the free Alcohol Drug Helpline….
Compiled and produced by:
Dave
Hookway - Health Promotion Advisor - Alcohol and other Drugs
Northland
District Health Board - 55 Hobson Ave, Kerikeri
Postal
address: - PO Box 906, Kerikeri 0230, Bay of Islands
( Ph (09)
430-4101 x 7895 | Mob 021-221- 4027 or free phone 0800-537-4342 option #3 Fax
09-4076215
Click here to
email
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