Personal experiences of drinking and alcohol-related risk perceptions: The importance of the subjective dimension

The Role of Personal Risk Experience-An Investigation of Health and Terrorism Risk Perception in Germany and Israel

The present study examined the relationship between risk experience and risk perceptions in relation to the target (risk to the self vs. others) and for two different types of risk: acute risks (i.e., terrorist attacks) and cumulative health risks (i.e., alcohol consumption, tobacco consumption, and unhealthy eating) in two countries (Israel and Germany). An online survey (N = 571) was conducted to assess participants' previous personal experience with acute and cumulative risks and their personal and general risk perceptions. The results showed that personal experience with terrorism was related to increased personal and general risk perceptions, while personal experience with cumulative health risks was related to increased personal but not general risk perceptions. It is argued that an increase in risk perception with more risk experience can be explained by the amount of available information about people's personal as well as other people's risk status. The findings emphasize that the experience-risk perception relationship depends on the target of the risk and the type of risk experience.

The credibility of risk information about licit substances: An exploratory study of attitudes among Swedish adults

Aims

Providing risk information on licit substances is a central health promotion strategy. There is, however, very little knowledge about public attitudes on this information. In this exploratory study we analyse the extent to which Swedish adults: 1) trust risk information regarding alcohol, cigarettes and wet snuff (“snus”) provided by public authorities, 2) perceive risk information regarding alcohol, cigarettes and snus as consistent, and 3) have received an adequate amount of risk information from public authorities regarding these substances. The aim is also to investigate if certain characteristics among participants are related to their perceptions of such risk information.

Methods

A questionnaire was mailed to a random sample of individuals aged 18 to 70 (n=1623, 54% response rate). Descriptive statistics and logistic regression techniques were used to process data.

Results

Participants trusted risk information concerning cigarettes, snus and alcohol provided by public authorities, and reported that they had received an adequate amount of it. Information about cigarettes was seen as more trustworthy and consistent than information about alcohol and snus. The study suggests that attitudes on risk information are substance-specific and associated in complex ways with gender, age, education and experience of own substance use.

Conclusion

While only a first attempt to map an under-investigated area, our study highlights complexities in how people perceive risk information about licit substances. It also indicates that the general population in Sweden receives what is seen as an adequate amount of knowledge from public authorities, and finds it consistent and trustworthy.

Social work assessment of underage alcohol consumption: Non-specialised social services comparison between Sweden and Italy

Aim

This research contributes to highlighting social work assessment of family situations with underage alcohol consumption and abuse. The comparative study invites reflection on the main features influencing an initial approach to adolescent problematic alcohol consumption outside specialised addiction services.

Design

– The study is based on a cross-national comparison. A questionnaire including a vignette story of a young girl (“Nadja”) and her family was submitted to thirty-five social workers employed in public social services in Stockholm, Malmö (Sweden), and Genoa (Italy). The participants were then invited to focus groups to discuss the main features that had emerged in the assessments.

Results

– Results show significant variations between Italian and Swedish social workers' assessments. Italian social workers are in general more concerned and interventionist than are their Swedish colleagues. Swedish social workers tend to intervene less, assuming that Nadja's consumption is “normal” teenage behaviour, while the Italian social workers, less accustomed to considering such behaviour as common, are more worried and prone to intervene immediately, in particular when Nadja is found drunk in the city centre.

Conclusion

The assessment proposed by public social workers appears to be informed by cultural understandings of alcohol consumption which permeate and reveal predominant tendencies in the two groups of professionals. Moreover, in Italy the social service mandate appears to be fragmented among different service units, whereas Swedish social workers operate within a broad welfare system that allocates specific resources for adolescent alcohol consumers. Further elements influencing the assessment are found in the legislative framework and consequently in the different practices and perspectives of intervention social workers assume in Sweden and Italy.