One-month alcohol abstinence national campaigns: a scoping review of the harm reduction benefits

An empirically based typology of temporary alcohol abstinence challenge participants using latent class analysis

INTRODUCTION

Identifying subgroups of Temporary (alcohol) Abstinence Challenge (TAC) participants may offer opportunities to enhance intervention effectiveness. However, knowledge about such subgroups is missing. This study aimed to (i) describe a TAC population; (ii) identify subgroups of participants based on determinants of changes in drinking behaviour; and (iii) characterise subgroups in terms of sociodemographic and other characteristics.

METHODS

Data from 3803 Dutch TAC participants were analysed to identify subgroups using three-step Latent Class Analysis. Classes were based on determinants of changes in drinking behaviour (i.e., drinking refusal self-efficacy, craving and behavioural automaticity) and were characterised by sociodemographic characteristics, drinking behaviour, previous participation in TACs, self-reported health and life satisfaction.

RESULTS

The majority of TAC participants were female, highly educated, employed, 53 years old on average, participated in previous TACs and reported relatively high alcohol use. Four classes of participants were identified: (i) 'ordinary drinkers' (49.0%); (ii) 'drinkers in control' (21.4%); (iii) 'habitual drinkers with perceived control to refuse' (18.4%); and (iv) 'drinkers not in control' (11.2%). Class 2 drank least often and non-excessive volumes, while other classes typically drank 4 or more days per week and 3 to 4 glasses per drinking day, with the highest alcohol use found in class 4.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

Different configurations of determinants in this study's four subgroups may require different intervention approaches and might inform personalised support. Future research is needed to examine the predictive value of these subgroups on post-challenge drinking behaviour to assess support needs and participation value.

The effect of an annual temporary abstinence campaign on population-level alcohol consumption in Thailand: a time-series analysis of 23 years

RATIONALE

A small number of earlier studies have suggested an effect of temporary abstinence campaigns on alcohol consumption. However, all were based on self-reported consumption estimates.

OBJECTIVES

Using a time series of 23-year monthly alcohol sales data, this study examined the effect of an annual temporary abstinence campaign, which has been organised annually since 2003 during the Buddhist Lent period (spanning 3 months), on population-level alcohol consumption.

METHODS

Data used in the analysis included a time series of monthly alcohol sales data from January 1995 to September 2017 and the midyear population counts for those years. Generalised additive models (GAM) were applied to estimate trends as smooth functions of time, while identifying a relationship between the Buddhist Lent abstinence campaigns on alcohol consumption. The sensitivity analysis was performed using a seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average with exogenous variables (SARIMAX) model.

INTERVENTION

The Buddhist Lent abstinence campaign is a national mass media campaign combined with community-based activities that encourages alcohol abstinence during the Buddhist Lent period, spanning 3 months and varying between July and October depending on the lunar calendar. The campaign has been organised annually since 2003.

MAIN OUTCOME

Per capita alcohol consumption using monthly alcohol sales data divided by the midyear total population number used as a proxy.

RESULTS

Median monthly per capita consumption was 0.43 (IQR: 0.37 to 0.51) litres of pure alcohol. Over the study period, two peaks of alcohol consumption were in March and December of each year. The significant difference between before-campaign and after-campaign coefficients in the GAM, -0.102 (95% CI: -0.163 to -0.042), indicated an effect of the campaign on alcohol consumption after adjusting for the time trend and monthly seasonality, corresponding to an average reduction of 9.97% (95% CI: 3.65% to 24.18%). The sensitivity analyses produced similar results, where the campaign was associated with a decrease in consumption of 8.1% (95% CI: 0.4% to 15.7%).

CONCLUSIONS

This study demonstrated that the temporary abstinence campaign was associated with a decrease in population-level alcohol consumption during campaign periods. The finding contributed to a growing body of evidence on the effectiveness of emerging temporary abstinence campaigns.

Implementation and Process Evaluation of Alcohol Free for 40: Community-Based Programming to Reduce Alcohol Consumption

Alcohol consumption is known to increase risk for chronic diseases and other negative health outcomes. Abstinence, even temporary, from alcohol consumption can have positive health impacts. In this article, we describe implementation and process evaluation of Ochsner Eat Fit's Alcohol Free for 40 (AFF40), an annual, 40-day voluntary alcohol abstinence challenge that takes place in six regions of Louisiana. Participants are challenged to abstain from alcohol consumption for 40 days to promote behavior change. To support participants' success, staff conduct pre and post metrics (physical and laboratory) and host community-based events to encourage replacement behaviors. Process evaluation included measures of reach, recruitment, dose, and fidelity through tracking of participant registrations, an exit survey, media analytics, and program activity logs. In 2021, 493 participants enrolled in AFF40, with 347 completing laboratory metrics and 298 completing physical metrics. Majority of exit survey respondents (74.5%) reported no alcohol consumption during the 40-day challenge and that they planned to participate in AFF40 2022 (90.9%). The Eat Fit team documented moderate engagement (48.7% of enrolled participants) in program events. Social and digital impressions and page views recorded 23,591 hits while print media resulted in over 750,000 impressions. AFF40 has shown to be highly engaging for participants and effective in supporting temporary abstinence from alcohol. Incorporating stronger methods and evaluation will enhance future program implementation and community impact. Lessons learned and implications for practice are transferable to other community-based efforts to reduce alcohol consumption.

Sober Curiosity and Participation in Temporary Alcohol Abstinence Challenges in a Cohort of U.S. Emerging Adults

OBJECTIVE

Thus far, behavioral health research in the United States has not explored the prevalence or correlates of sober curiosity (SC; exploratory or experimental abstinence or moderation) or temporary alcohol abstinence challenges (TAACs; e.g., "Dry January"), despite significant attention in media and popular discourse. We explored these activities in a sample of U.S. emerging adults (e.g., ages 18-29), a population with higher-risk drinking behavior yet some of the lowest rates of treatment engagement for alcohol use problems.

METHOD

Survey data were collected in 2021-2022 among participants (n = 1,659; M age = 24.7 years). We assessed SC awareness/engagement and past-year TAAC participation, and differences across demographics and behavioral characteristics.

RESULTS

Overall, 9% of emerging adults were familiar with SC and 7% had participated in a TAAC in the past year. Half of TAAC participants reported drinking less after the TAAC, and 15% remained abstinent after the TAAC ended. SC familiarity and TAAC were both associated with past-month heavy drinking, cannabis use, higher Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) scores, more past-year alcohol and cannabis consequences, past-year substance use treatment, and greater readiness to quit alcohol.

CONCLUSIONS

Both SC and TAACs may have potential to engage young people with a desire to moderate or eliminate their alcohol consumption. This may occur directly through use of these strategies or by helping them connect to additional services. Future research can help the field understand the uptake of SC and TAACs, gauge efficacy, and identify avenues to link young people to resources and interventions.

Using Natural Language Processing to Explore "Dry January" Posts on Twitter: Longitudinal Infodemiology Study

BACKGROUND

Dry January, a temporary alcohol abstinence campaign, encourages individuals to reflect on their relationship with alcohol by temporarily abstaining from consumption during the month of January. Though Dry January has become a global phenomenon, there has been limited investigation into Dry January participants' experiences. One means through which to gain insights into individuals' Dry January-related experiences is by leveraging large-scale social media data (eg, Twitter chatter) to explore and characterize public discourse concerning Dry January.

OBJECTIVE

We sought to answer the following questions: (1) What themes are present within a corpus of tweets about Dry January, and is there consistency in the language used to discuss Dry January across multiple years of tweets (2020-2022)? (2) Do unique themes or patterns emerge in Dry January 2021 tweets after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic? and (3) What is the association with tweet composition (ie, sentiment and human-authored vs bot-authored) and engagement with Dry January tweets?

METHODS

We applied natural language processing techniques to a large sample of tweets (n=222,917) containing the term "dry january" or "dryjanuary" posted from December 15 to February 15 across three separate years of participation (2020-2022). Term frequency inverse document frequency, k-means clustering, and principal component analysis were used for data visualization to identify the optimal number of clusters per year. Once data were visualized, we ran interpretation models to afford within-year (or within-cluster) comparisons. Latent Dirichlet allocation topic modeling was used to examine content within each cluster per given year. Valence Aware Dictionary and Sentiment Reasoner sentiment analysis was used to examine affect per cluster per year. The Botometer automated account check was used to determine average bot score per cluster per year. Last, to assess user engagement with Dry January content, we took the average number of likes and retweets per cluster and ran correlations with other outcome variables of interest.

RESULTS

We observed several similar topics per year (eg, Dry January resources, Dry January health benefits, updates related to Dry January progress), suggesting relative consistency in Dry January content over time. Although there was overlap in themes across multiple years of tweets, unique themes related to individuals' experiences with alcohol during the midst of the COVID-19 global pandemic were detected in the corpus of tweets from 2021. Also, tweet composition was associated with engagement, including number of likes, retweets, and quote-tweets per post. Bot-dominant clusters had fewer likes, retweets, or quote tweets compared with human-authored clusters.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings underscore the utility for using large-scale social media, such as discussions on Twitter, to study drinking reduction attempts and to monitor the ongoing dynamic needs of persons contemplating, preparing for, or actively pursuing attempts to quit or cut down on their drinking.

Changes in Alcohol Consumption after 1 Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study in a Region of France

BACKGROUND

There is conflicting evidence on how the COVID-19 pandemic changed patterns of alcohol consumption. While some studies have suggested that alcohol consumption decreased at the beginning of the pandemic, there are limited data for a longer period. The objective of this study was to investigate changes in alcohol consumption 1 year after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in France, and to identify vulnerable subgroups in a French adult population.

METHODS

This was a single-center, cross-sectional, descriptive study. Self-reported changes in alcohol consumption were collected from 2491 respondents in a survey carried out in western Brittany from 18 January to 9 March 2021.

RESULTS

Of respondents, 27.64% reported that they had increased their alcohol consumption, 14.7% had decreased, 3.94% had ceased, and 53.72% reported no change in their alcohol consumption. Increased alcohol use was associated with male gender, age 26 to 44 years, living with a family, not being a health professional, having had a physical or psychological health problem during lockdowns, smoking tobacco, and using cannabis. Reduced alcohol use or cessation was associated with male gender, age 18 to 25 years, living in Brest, living alone, and using cannabis.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study suggests that during the COVID-19 pandemic, a significant number of people increased their alcohol consumption in France, even outside lockdowns. These results should encourage health professionals and public authorities to implement more specific prevention measures to limit the risks associated with alcohol consumption.