Centre for Alcohol Policy Research

Today we celebrated 20 years of research, collaboration, and innovation at CAPR in Melbourne.

This milestone isn’t just about CAPR’s achievements — it’s about the people who make them possible: students, researchers, partners, and our community.

Here’s to the next 20 years!

New on The BASIS: We review a study by researchers from @capraustralia.bsky.social that analyzed Reddit discussions to explore how people manage the fear of missing out (FoMO) when reducing their alcohol use. basisonline.org/2026/02/24/c...

New open access tutorial paper on how social scientists can use machine learning to analyse images. We think this is a super cool method and we have aimed it at those with no background in programming or computer science psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...

New paper by Maree Patsouras (+supervisors & @sarjomac.bsky.social). It explores how midlife women's drinking challenges/fits within ideals around femininity, 'good motherhood' and neoliberalism.

A great final qual paper as part of Maree's mixed methods PhD! 😊

doi.org/10.1016/j.so...

A response to Weatherburn et al. (2025) ‘Risky alcohol use and violence against women: cause or consequence?’

New from @meganpcook.bsky.social, @amypennay.bsky.social and myself in @ijdrugpolicy.bsky.social - we talk about the current focus on how women's consumption influences their risk of assault. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A Trobe university-led report on alcohol's harm to others (Dec 2025), shares findings on the extent of harm experienced by people around the drinker. This report strengthens the evidence base for all countries to review their polices.
Read the report here: opal.latrobe.edu.au/articles/rep...

Alcohol's harms to others than the drinker is often overlooked, but in Australia a new report lays it all out.

Report reveals scale of alcohol’s harm to others Report shows almost half the population negatively affected by alcohol

The report delivers the most comprehensive analysis yet on the scale, nature, economic burden, inequalities, and drivers of alcohol’s harm to others in Australia.

www.latrobe.edu.au/news/article...

This launch celebrates the completion of a multi-year ARC-funded project led by La Trobe University, Central Queensland University, with FARE, the Australian Institute of Family Studies, Monash Health, the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, the ADF and the Australian Rechabite Foundation.

Today CAPR is attending the official launch of the Alcohol Harms to Others Report at the Victorian Parliament, hosted by the Minister for Casino, Gaming and Liquor Regulation, The Honourable Enver Erdogan MLC.

“Rethinking drug-related harms as emerging through global systems” by Gabriel Caluzzi & Thomas Norman #accepted

Risk versus pleasure: understanding changing attitudes of non- and light-drinking young people as they age There have been significant declines in alcohol use for adolescents in high-income countries since the mid-2000s. Research suggests key factors are driving this, including: (1) negative attitudes t...

Open access: Risk versus pleasure: understanding changing attitudes of non- and light-drinking young people as they age by
@amypennay.bsky.social
@gabrielcaluzzi.bsky.social
@megancook.bsky.social
@michaellivingston.bsky.social

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Text Messaging Intervention for Postpartum Alcohol Use: Micro-Randomized Trial Supports Feasibility, Acceptability, and Maternal Message Preference: Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs: Vol 0, No ... Objective: This pilot micro-randomized trial (MRT) evaluated feasibility of the MRT design and compared acceptability and preliminary impacts of drinking-focused and maternal-focused text messages to ...

Text Messaging Intervention for Postpartum Alcohol Use: Micro-Randomized Trial Supports Feasibility, Acceptability ... (just accepted in @jsadjournal.bsky.social)
@johnshopkinssph.bsky.social @janardan.bsky.social @drjthrul.bsky.social @capraustralia.bsky.social
www.jsad.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Discourses of addiction in the construction of people whose drinking affected others in narratives about alcohol harms to others While research in alcohol harms to others (AHTO) has described the characteristics of people whose drinking affects others, few studies have investiga…

Hoang-Van Nguyen and Anne-Marie Laslett from #CAPR have published a new qualitative paper in
@ijdrugpolicy.bsky.social

📃"Discourses of addiction in the construction of people whose drinking affected others in narratives about alcohol harms to others"

🔎 Read: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Young people represent a "unique social generation with regards to alcohol".

Dr @amypennay.bsky.social explains why on our latest podcast with Prof @jholmessheff.bsky.social 🎙️

Listen here: ias.org.uk/podcast/why-...

Young people, alcohol and risk: A Culture of Caution A recent book by an international team of authors theorises the social, cultural and economic shifts accompanying the decline in youth alcohol consumption observed in many high-income countries since ...

Nice to have this out in popNAD. It summarises key ideas around declines in youth drinking that we explore in our book. Worth a read for overview of this body of work!

@amypennay.bsky.social @soc-researcher.bsky.social @jholmessheff.bsky.social @capraustralia.bsky.social

tinyurl.com/bdzajx8c

Why is youth drinking in decline?

Listen to our latest podcast to hear why it's more than any one cause, and needs to be understood from a broader sociological position of generational change.
Ft. @jholmessheff.bsky.social and @amypennay.bsky.social

Listen here: www.ias.org.uk/podcast/why-...

How much has youth drinking declined in England? 📉

Prof @jholmessheff.bsky.social and Dr @amypennay.bsky.social discuss the decline in youth drinking in our latest podcast.

Links to listen here: ias.org.uk/podcast/why-...

Do we know if the decline in youth drinking follows through into people's 20s?

Learn all you need to know about the decline in youth drinking in our latest podcast with Prof @jholmessheff.bsky.social and Dr @amypennay.bsky.social

Listen here: www.ias.org.uk/podcast/why-...

We have to avoid attempts by the alcohol industry or policymakers to reverse the trend of young people drinking less.

🎙️If you haven't listened to our podcast on the decline in youth drinking with @jholmessheff.bsky.social and @amypennay.bsky.social, listen here today!

ias.org.uk/podcast/why-...

Why alcohol policies miss those at the highest risk from drinking Campaigns designed to help us cut back on alcohol don’t always reach those most at risk of harm. Here’s what we should be doing instead.

Excited to be starting work to better understand the Alcohol Harm Paradox in Australia; thanks to the Conversation for their interest in this work

@theconversation.com

theconversation.com/why-alcohol-...

Besides the Drinking in Alcohol's Harm to Others: Potential Economic and Environmental Factors: Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs: Vol 86, No 4 Objective: This article considers how harm from others' drinking is distributed across several economic and environmental factors. Method: Economic, environmental, demographic, and drinking measures include household income, financial disadvantage indicators, and home spaciousness; neighborhood socioeconomic status, connections, and safety; and respondent's gender, age group, and risky drinking status. This article explores the interactions of these factors with harms from the drinking of others in a 2021 survey of 2,574 Australian adults. Results: The home's degree of crowding (persons per bedroom) is related to harms from others in the household, whereas financial disadvantage is related to harms from drinkers outside the household, whether known or strangers. Perceived neighborhood safety and knowing neighbors are negatively related to harms from the drinking of others outside the household. In multivariate analyses for harms from household members and strangers, these findings are little affected by three individual factors related to harms from others' drinking: the respondent's gender, age group, and risky drinking status. Conclusions: Some economic and ecological factors play an important role in the occurrence of harm from others' drinking, but the relationship varies between factors and by the category of the other person involved. (J. Stud. Alcohol Drugs, 86, 601–610, 2025)

Besides the Drinking in Alcohol's Harm to Others: Potential Economic and Environmental Factors (new in @jsadjournal.bsky.social 86/4)
@andersonluxford.bsky.social @capraustralia.bsky.social @stockholm-uni.bsky.social
www.jsad.com/doi/full/10....

CAPR's director Emmanuel Kuntsche rocked the mic at the recent Global Congress on Behavioural Addictions in Istanbul. Here are some pics from his presentation on how machine learning is used in addiction research.

New on The BASIS: We review a study by researchers from @capraustralia.bsky.social that examined the association between demographic factors and experiences of harm resulting from someone else’s drinking among Australian adults. basisonline.org/2025/06/17/h...

@amypennay.bsky.social @sarjomac.bsky.social @klaudia8292.bsky.social @sarahcallinan.bsky.social @meganpcook.bsky.social @yvettemp.bsky.social @jconigr.bsky.social @gabrielcaluzzi.bsky.social and more #CAPRAustralia

We had a total of 15 presentations on:

📊 Alcohol availability & harm reduction
💬 Drinking motives & trends
💔 Intimate partner and family violence & harm to others
⚧️ Gender and sex differences
🏥 Workplace harms
🌱 Environmental influences
🕰 Historical trends, inequalities & public health

…and more!

What a big week at #KBS2025!

The #CAPR team showed up in full force this year — presenting across a huge range of topics and joining global talks on alcohol research, policy, and harm

Huge thanks to @kettilbruunsociety.bsky.social and everyone who made it such a vibrant and collaborative week! 🌍💬

KBS has a long-standing tradition of facilitating cross-national research on gender and alcohol.

Another full room for the #KBS2025 workshop on this topic, chaired by @soc-researcher.bsky.social, @meganpcook.bsky.social, and Annamae Burrows.

Plenty of ideas for future research collaborations!

The #KBS2025 session on Sex and Gender Studies wrapped up with a great presentation by @meganpcook.bsky.social.

She shared results from a systematic review on how men and women are studied differently in alcohol research.

💁🏼‍♀️🙋🏼‍♂️ The room was packed!