Abstract
The International Alcohol Control Policy Index measures the strength of a country’s alcohol control policies across ten areas, helping to compare national approaches and support more effective public health strategies. New research has used the Index to assess how well six countries, including Aotearoa New Zealand, and four Canadian provinces ranked in terms of the status of alcohol control policies known to be effective in reducing alcohol harm.
Overall, Aotearoa New Zealand’s score was the lowest of all the eleven jurisdictions analysed. This reflected our lack of regulation of alcohol marketing and longer than average hours of alcohol sales per week. Our drink driving legislation scored well, as did that of the others in the study. Our best score was on affordability, the pricing of cheap alcohol relative to income and this reflected the regular inflation adjustment to alcohol excise tax. Australia did somewhat better than us overall and the top scorers were Lithuania, Norway, Finland and Ireland. The findings highlight areas to improve policy to reduce the harm from alcohol in Aotearoa New Zealand.