Alcohol warning labels: Webinar recording
In 2021, close to one in five Canadians (18%) reported consuming five or more drinks on days they consumed alcohol, according to Statistics Canada. During the pandemic, BC reported a 22% increase in alcohol consumption.
While drinks during dinner at home, social gatherings and celebrations are common for most adults in BC, the prevalence and normalization of regular alcohol consumption in our society underscores the need for effective policy to reduce health harms. Over the long-term, regular consumption of even just one or two drinks a day has proven to be “causally linked with significant increases in the risk of at least eight types of cancer and numerous other serious medical conditions.”
One way we can decrease these numbers is to promote the updated low-risk drinking guidelines (guidelines), along with advocating for the implementation of alcohol warning labels (labels). Labels can act like health warnings on tobacco products or like nutrition facts labels on food items, where they can provide health warnings, information on cancer risk or standard drink information.
This webinar discusses the benefits of various types of alcohol warning labels in a variety of jurisdictions, ways we can implement them and how we can advocate for them here in British Columbia.
Speakers’ profiles:
Norman Giesbrecht is a Scientist Emeritus with the Institute for Mental Health Policy Research at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on alcohol policy development in local, provincial and national settings, risks and benefits of alcohol consumption and risk factors for chronic disease.
Erin Hobin is a Scientist at Public Health Ontario, a Collaborating Scientist with the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research (CISUR) and an Associate Professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on developing and evaluating population level interventions for chronic disease prevention, specifically healthy eating, physical activity, and alcohol control.
