Professor Sally Casswell was a resource person at a week long workshop held in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic in which senior government officials from health, justice, finance and trade from four countries: Viet Nam, Lao PDR, Cambodia and Mongolia came together to develop effective alcohol policy. This was the second module of a project organised by the Western Pacific Regional Office of the World Health Organisation. ‘This is a contribution we make as a World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre in alcohol and drug policy and provides a very valuable insight into the alcohol environment and the activities of the alcohol industry globally’ said Professor Casswell.

Extensive Beer Lao marketing is targeted in the new draft Decree on Alcohol Control in Lao PDR.

Research funding for Quantifying the disease burden of alcohol’s harm to others

Professor Sally Casswell has been awarded nearly $1 million in funding from the Health Research Council of New Zealand, to investigate what is known as the “second hand” harm of alcohol, the effects of heavy drinking on others. Professor Casswell will lead the research, alongside Dr Taisia Huckle, Professor Helen Moewaka Barnes and Dr Jose Romeo, SHORE & Whāriki Research Centre, Massey University, Professor Jennie Connor, School of Medicine, University of Otago and Professor Jurgen Rehm, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Canada. See the Massey News page for more details.

Members of the research team for the Enabling participation for disabled children and young people project met with research participants, sector activists and NZSL interpreters at SHORE & Whariki Research Centre on September 19 (2018) to discuss preliminary findings from the project.  The three-year HRC-funded project, which ends in December, involves researchers from Massey, AUT and Auckland universities, 35 Deaf and disabled young people and their parents, and sector key informants.  Key questions were:

What’s working well and what needs to change to enable the community participation of Deaf and disabled young people?

How does this differ for Deaf and hearing impaired, vision-impaired and mobility impaired young people?

What are the parents’ experiences and how do these differ from those of the young people?

Māori attitudes and behaviours towards alcohol

Emerald Muriwai, Dr Taisia Huckle and Dr Jose Romeo (SHORE & Whāriki Research Centre, Massey University) were contracted by the Health Promotion Agency analyse the Attitudes and Behaviour towards Alcohol Survey (ABAS) data to assess Māori attitudes and behaviours. 

The analysis used a strengths-based and Kaupapa Māori analytic approach finding Māori who were male and in younger age groups were found to be more likely to be drinkers across a variety of time frames, and more likely to be identified as risky drinkers. Māori women reported lower percentages for all four drinking measures than Māori men. Location analyses revealed that Māori from the South Island had an increased likelihood of being a last year and past four weeks drinker and consuming at a level of two or more drinks on the last occasion. However, Māori from the South Island were less likely to report at least one negative experience from drinking. On the other hand, Māori from Auckland were more likely to agree with the statement “In some situations it is hard to say I am not drinking’ and “Binge drinking is part of kiwi culture””.

Our findings suggest that Māori with no formal education were less likely to be identified as last year or past four-week drinkers compared to those with formal qualifications. However, Māori with no formal education were more likely to be identified as risky drinkers, relative to those in the degree/postgraduate qualification category. Young people were more likely to experience at least one negative experience while drinking and to report getting drunk or intoxicated when compared to those 55 years and over. When looking at access to alcohol, most participants agreed it was easy to get to licensed premises from where they lived.

This report explores the context of drinking from a Māori perspective. Specifically, the results are discussed amongst a context of systemic issues uniquely faced by Māori. Furthermore, recommendations for future research and continued indigenous data sovereignty are explored. 

Please see more details here.

The New Zealand Medical Journal has just published an editorial by Associate Professor Chris Wilkins and Dr Marta Rychert on Responding to a new wave of high potency synthetic cannabinoids.

The Gambling Research Exchange in Ontario have published a plain language summary of a recent article by Chris Wilkins on ‘Adapting a “not-for-profit” regulatory approach for gaming machine gambling to legal recreational cannabis’. Click here to read the summary.

New findings from the International Alcohol Control (IAC) Study, led by researchers at the SHORE & Whariki Research Centre, College of Health,  have been published in a Special Issue just released in Drug and Alcohol Review.

The IAC Special Issue includes data from 10 countries on key alcohol policy issues such as taxation, availability, support for policy and drinking behaviour. Countries included  New Zealand, Australia, Scotland and England and a number of middle-income countries including: Mongolia, Thailand, Viet Nam, Peru and South Africa.

Taisia Huckle (pictured) said ‘ The IAC is producing important policy relevant information and it has been a great experience working with a large number of international collaborators’.

Associate Professor Chris Wilkins, speaking this morning to TVNZ 1's Breakfast programme, said the number of arrests for cannabis has fallen by about 70 per cent since 1990, as police are increasingly uninterested in punishing people for related offences. 

See more details here.

Professor Casswell is part of the Sugar Tobacco and Alcohol Taxes (STAX) Group, an international group of experts, including from the UN. WHO and World Bank, whose article on the health benefits of sugar, alcohol and tobacco taxes was published recently in The Lancet. Their research was cited on the Stuff website, 17 June, in an article titled Coca-Cola recruiting lobbyist to fight sugar tax, despite new research revealing such taxes can save lives.

The Journal of Transport & Health is providing free access until August 02, 2018 to two recent articles co-authored by researchers at SHORE & Whāriki. Click on the titles of the articles following to download them: Te Ara Mua –Future Streets: Knowledge exchange and the highs and lows of researcher-practitioner collaboration to design active travel infrastructure, and Built environment associates of active school travel in New Zealand children and youth: A systematic meta-analysis using individual participant data.

New research from Massey University shows little evidence that changes introduced by the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act (2012) have affected New Zealand’s alcohol environment.

The research, led by Steve Randerson from the SHORE and Whāriki Research Centre, was today published in the New Zealand Medical Journal. See more details here.

Improving youth wellbeing is an increasing priority of policymakers, researchers and politicians in New Zealand, but what does wellbeing mean to young New Zealanders today? 

A new research project, led by Dr Octavia Calder-Dawe with Victoria Lesatele and Emerald Muriwai from Massey University’s SHORE and Whāriki Research Centre, has been awarded an emerging researcher grant of nearly $250,000 from the Health Research Council of New Zealand.

See more details here.

The report on the findings from the latest Massey University Illicit Drug Monitoring System (IDMS) is available to download here. For more information see the article on the Massey University news page and interview with Associate Professor Chris Wilkins on Breakfast (TVNZ). Details of other research by Chris Wilkins are available here on his profile page.

Nicola is of Samoan, Tongan and Niuean heritage and during her PhD journey, she moved to Australia, married Andrew and had three children.

Her PhD thesis, Samoan Kids in the City is about the impact of Samoan parenting practices on Samoan children’s independent mobility and physical activity.  Children’s independent mobility – unsupervised play and travel - is an essential component of physical activity for children. Her research concluded that independent mobility was not an effective tool for measuring Samoan children’s physical activity levels because children were encouraged and motivated by their parents and ‘aiga (extended family) to participate in collective activities.

See more detail here.

A report is available about new research led by Dr. Taisia Huckle from SHORE & Whariki showing social supply of alcohol to friends under 18 has reduced following a law change (Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012), but the quantities of alcohol supplied are still alarmingly high.

The report can be found here.

Marta Rychert was awarded her Ph.D. at the Massey University graduation ceremony at the Bruce Mason Centre in Takapuna, Auckland. Marta studied issues with the implementation of the Psychoactive Substances Act (PSA) 2013.

See more detail about her doctoral research here.

 

Check out our second research bulletin from the New Zealand Drug Trends survey on drug dependency and need for help for your region here.

Read about the preliminary findings from the NZ Drug Trends Survey here.

New research led by Dr Taisia Huckle from SHORE & Whariki  shows social supply of alcohol to friends under 18 has reduced following a law change (Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012), but the quantities of alcohol supplied are still alarmingly high. Two national general population surveys of drinkers were analysed before and after the law change, which came into effect on December 1 2013. Dr Huckle was interviewed for a New Zealand Herald article about the study’s findings.

Professor Sally Casswell appeared on TVNZ's Breakfast programme discussing alcohol licencing and taxes after a call for a price rise. Watch the video here.