Alcohol and public health: culture, policy and delivery

This project seeks to enhance the design and delivery of alcohol harm reduction policies in South West England through encouraging wide-ranging engagement with historical and cultural research. It is based on the Lead Investigator's work on the social history of drinking in England, and will be delivered in partnership with the Department of Health South West Alcohol Improvement Programme. Four subregional workshops will address the role of historical and cultural knowledge in the areas of health provision, crime reduction and licensing policy. Participants will include representatives from Primary Care Trusts, Drug and Alcohol Action Teams, Crime and Disorder Partnerships, local licensing authorities, and third sector organisations. Once completed, a briefing resource will be produced and disseminated to participants and other stakeholders via the Department of Health South West. The resource will provide a toolkit for practitioners seeking to apply historical and cultural knowledge to their work in alcohol harm reduction. The workshops will also promote the establishment of sustainable knowledge and resource sharing networks across a field which is often fragmented, with particular gaps in communication between historical researchers, policy developers and frontline service providers. The need to address the challenge of culture change around alcohol use has been identified as a key strategic goal by a number of Government departments ( Department of Health, Home Office, DCMS and DCSF); this project seeks to make a distinctive contribution to that process by promoting a historically-informed culture among those responsible for designing and delivering alcohol harm reduction policies. It will also seek to promote greater engagement between humanities research and public health provision where relevant.

Beneficiaries

Alcohol service providers in regional Primary Care Trusts; regional NHS public health managers; regional Public Health Observatories; NHS social marketing teams; GPs
Health service providers will benefit from this project by developing their capacity to place health provision in a broader historical and cultural context. Effective health communication requires an understanding of both cultural drivers and evidence of approaches that have worked previously. This project will encourage an active engagement with these questions as well as presenting examples of effective practice. The briefing resource will provide an ongoing toolkit for service providers seeking to develop their work in alcohol health communication.

Drug and Alcohol Action Teams; Local Alcohol Partnerships; local Crime and Disorder Partnerships; police
Supporting culture change is a key strategic goal of statutory bodies dealing with alcohol related crime and antisocial behaviour. This project will develop the capacity of these bodies to place specific cultural trends in a wider social and historical context.

Local licensing authorities
The historical research on which this project is based deals extensively with licensing history and practice. This project will contribute to the development of a historically informed evidence base which will support decision-making within licensing authorities. It will also provide an evidence base for associated policy areas such as policing and planning.

All participant groups will also benefit from collaborative discussions with practitioners in related sectors. The establishment of knowledge and resource-sharing networks will facilitate sustainable cross-cutting collaboration between these groups.

Academics working in the history of public health or alcohol
There is a significant body of academic work in this area (e.g. Society for the Social History of Medicine; ESRC Network on Intoxicants and Intoxication in Historical and Cultural Perspective; Alcohol and Drugs History Society). However, the links between humanities research and both policy and frontline delivery in this area are weak. This project will support the development of stronger relationships between academic researchers, policymakers and delivery services, thereby developing the capacity for humanities research to make a difference in this field.

Health advisory groups (e.g. the BMA, Alcohol Concern, NICE)
Although not directly involved in this project, these groups will benefit from a greater understanding of collaboration between historical research and health delivery in practice. This will enhance their already significant expertise in epidemiological and biomedical approaches.

Government departments (Department of Health, Home Offcie, DCMS, DCSF)
As the partner organisation in this project, the Department of Health South West will benefit from greater historical and cultural knowledge in relation to its own remit, and the establishment of stronger cross-cutting networks with relevant stakeholders and service providers. The project will provide evidence for all other relevant Government departments regarding the role of historical knowledge in the promotion of culture change and the benefit of partnerships between humanities research and health service providers.

The project has relevance for the goal of achieving culture change around drinking throughout the UK. This has been identified as a key strategic goal by the DCMS, Home Office and DCSF.

Throughout the project, the partner organisation will monitor impacts as part of its remit to promote partnership and support knowledge-sharing. The Lead Investigator will run ongoing follow-up communications with participants and structured workshop feedback will be collated and incorporated into interim reports. The briefing resource will ensure tha