April 10, 2017
Maureen Fitzgerald
Communications Coordinator, ATTC Network Coordinating Office
Editor, NIATx
Wisconsin gets a lot of attention for its alcohol culture. And during April, Alcohol Awareness Month, it’s hard not to be reminded of the news and statistics about alcohol use in the Dairy State—especially if it’s your home state. (The NIATx main office and the ATTC Network Coordinating Office are both located at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.)
Julia Sherman, Coordinator of the Wisconsin Alcohol Policy
Project (WAPP) at the University of
Wisconsin Law School, says the report is misleading, but acknowledges Wisconsin
has a serious alcohol problem. “The
writers at 24/7 Wall Street used aggregated county-wide data and made a
judgement about individual municipalities. Interesting story but flawed analysis,” says Sherman.
Still, there’s no doubt that Wisconsin has a serious problem
with over consumption of alcohol:
- A 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) report estimated Wisconsin’s rate of impaired driving at 24 percent—almost twice the national average of 13 percent. [1]
- In 2014, Wisconsin had the nation’s third-highest rate of adult binge drinking.[2] (That’s an improvement from previous years when the state ranked highest in that category.)
- Each year, Wisconsin residents (age 18 or older) consume 143 more servings of alcohol than the average American. [3]
Unlike most other states, in Wisconsin, alcohol is licensed
locally and most enforcement is handled by local law enforcement.
“Wisconsin doesn’t have an alcohol beverage control board
(ABC), a state police force, or a department that reviews new alcohol products
or advertising,” says Sherman. On the
other hand, municipal licensing of alcohol outlets gives local leaders a
significant amount of control over the community alcohol environment – when
they exercise it,” she adds.
Sherman has worked on public policy for most of her career. In
2001, she began her work in alcohol policy at the American Medical Association’s
Office of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse in Chicago and later served as the
national Field Director for the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at
Georgetown University. In 2009, she
chaired the Alcohol, Culture and Environment Work Group of the Wisconsin Sate
Council on Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and authored its final report, Changing Wisconsin’s Alcohol Environment to
Promote Safe and Healthy Lives.
The Wisconsin Alcohol Policy Project (WAPP) was established
specifically to provide training and technical assistance to support
organizations and local governments working to improve their alcohol
environments. The evidence-based tools WAPP provides help communities
understand the scope of their authority and what they can do to change their
alcohol culture.
Targeting the Four A’s
Research on alcohol control shows that across countries and
cultures, four basic factors shape the alcohol environment:
- Availability
- Attractiveness
- Affordability
- Acceptability
Three of the four factors are well within the control of
local communities, says Sherman. The state alcohol tax rate determines local
alcohol prices and is set by the Legislature.
“The number of alcohol outlets, hours and days of sale, alcohol
advertising and pricing, and how acceptable it is to use or misuse alcohol all
contribute to the local alcohol culture,” she adds. “For example, Wisconsin
allows more types of locations to sell alcohol and municipalities often license
more locations to sell alcohol than other states.”
See Google data: Wisconsin's bars outnumber grocery stores almost three to oneIn some communities, an over-concentration of alcohol outlets has led to serious problems with alcohol-related crime and disorder.
Communities Are Taking Action
A number of Wisconsin communities are using local ordinances to address
alcohol-related problems. For example,
unlike other states Wisconsin state law does not cover bartender drinking, so a
number of communities adopted “sober-server” requirements to limit the blood
alcohol level of people serving or selling alcohol.
Two campus communities, La Crosse and Menomonie, adopted
public intoxication ordinances to enable law enforcement to intervene and get
seriously intoxicated individuals to safety or medical care. After a string of drownings, the City of La
Crosse adopted a series of ordinances that, combined with special efforts, have
reduced alcohol problems at all three local campuses.
One area where Wisconsin has started to reverse the trend is
in underage drinking.
“Our rate of underage drinking has dropped from the highest
in the nation to the national average,” says Sherman. “We still have a long way to go to change drinking behaviors in
Wisconsin, but this success shows that if we can change, nobody else has an
excuse not to.”
What’s the drinking
culture in your state? Is your state also working on strategies to reduce
problem alcohol use a the local level? Share your story in the comment section
below.
[1]
Wisconsin Department of Health Services, Division of Care and Treatment
Services and Division of Public Health. Wisconsin Epidemiological Profile on
Alcohol and Other Drugs, 2016 (P-45718-16). Prepared by the Division of
Care and Treatment Services, Division of Public Health, and the University of
Wisconsin Population Health Institute.
[2]
Ibid
[3]
Ibid
No comments:
Post a Comment