Health promotion resources

Objective

To support greater awareness and understanding of alcohol misuse and harm.

To provide practical supports to empower and enable people to drink less or cut out alcohol.

To protect and improve health and wellbeing in Irish society by preventing and reducing alcohol misuse and harm.

Description

Drinkaware was established in March 2016 as a health promotion organisation. Its vision is of an Ireland where alcohol is not misused, and its mission is to fundamentally and permanently change attitudes and behaviours to prevent and reduce misuse. Drinkaware works towards achieving its mission by raising awareness, creating understanding and supporting behaviour change through evidence-led education and effective communications.

Drinkaware produces health promotion resources for the public. These health promotion resources are also widely utilised by community, health, civil society organisations, youth and education organisations.

Drinkaware’s range resources offer practical ways to drink less or cut out alcohol to protect health and wellbeing. These resources are critical to support positive behaviour change as they address two Levers for Change – ‘an understanding of misuse’ and ‘the know-how to change’. Many of the resources are also available in the Irish and Polish languages.

Measurement aids: created to promote understanding of and adherence to standard drinks and HSE low-risk guidelines.

Standard Drink measure cup: The measure has markings for wine, spirits and beer. It was created in 2017.
Drinks Calculator wheel: Also created in 2017, the Drinks Calculator wheel offers a quick way for people to see the number of standard drinks and grams of alcohol consumed, in addition to the calorie and sugar content of many different types of drinks.

Packs

The Get the Facts pack for individuals was introduced in 2017. Each pack contains: an Alcohol and You booklet, a Standard drink measure cup and a Drinks, calorie and sugar calculator.
Parent Pack: Each pack contains a Talking Matters: A resource for Parents, a Young People, Alcohol and Mental Health booklet.

Booklets

Alcohol and You: Features information on standard drinks, the low-risk guidelines, alcohol’s impact on health and wellbeing and tips to drink less or cut out alcohol. An updated version of the Alcohol & You booklet was launched in 2022.
Talking Matters: A resource for Parents/Guardians to support and help you talk to your children about alcohol
Alcohol and Your mental Health: Facts about alcohol’s impact on mental health and advice to develop healthy coping strategies without alcohol. It was launched in 2020 following over 18,000 pageviews on drinkaware.ie relating to mental health and to mark Alcohol Awareness Week. It was created to help adults recognise the importance of developing healthy ways to cope without alcohol, with helpful explanatory information and advice on alcohol and anxiety, sleep, building resilience and how alcohol can impact on depression.

Posters

Alcohol Guidelines: Visualises standard drinks and the HSE low-risk weekly guidelines.
Alcohol and the body: Some of the different ways drinking alcohol can affect the body.

In 2022 the decision was made to cease all digital promotion of the health promotion resources. This decision was based on increased and high distribution costs. The halt of digital promotion was a strategic decision, with a focus on large-scale deliveries to organisations in favour of distribution to individuals. This explains the high decrease in orders made compared to the substantially lower decrease in actual resources being distributed throughout the year. Bulk orders predominantly from healthcare settings allowed the team to continue to provide the resources to the public while also reducing the costs to the organisiation.

Results

In 2022, 1,186 orders were placed for resources and 26,870 measure cups, booklets, calculators and posters were distributed nationwide. The Drinkaware measuring cup continued to be the most popular resource, followed by the Alcohol & You booklet and the Drinkaware Calculator Wheel. The Drinkaware public health resources are popular with the public, health care professionals, parents and educators. There were 2,961 orders for the Alcohol and Mental Health booklet and 6,920 orders for the Alcohol & You Booklet.

In 2021, 6,872 orders were placed for resources and 33,130 measure cups, booklets, calculators and posters were distributed nationwide.

In 2020, 11,134 orders were placed for resources. More than 96,000 measure cups, booklets, calculators and posters distributed nationwide throughout the year.

2019: 4,342 orders were placed for resources and more than 65,000 measure cups, booklets, calculators and posters distributed nationwide throughout the year.

2018: More than 60,000 individual resources were ordered and distributed.

2017: More than 35,000 individual resources were ordered and distributed, including the standard drink measure cup, drinks calculator wheel and suite of information booklets.

Measurement & evaluation

2019: 92% of people who ordered health promotion resources agree that they will help them to drink less (User feedback via Survey Monkey).

2018: People who used Drinkaware’s health promotion resources found:

92% found them helpful or very helpful.
73% intended to make positive changes to their drinking habits as a result of the information in these resources.
91% would recommend them to others.

What people say (User feedback via Survey Monkey)

2021: Very helpful tools to educate people to be more aware of their drinking habits.
2020: They are visually appealing. The measure is a very effective way of showing how much is in a standard unit”.
2019: “The resources are very helpful and informative. An easy way to start discussions and promote visual understanding of alcohol”
2018: “Very easy to use and understand, consumer friendly.” “They are excellent, informative, easy to use and I have learned a huge amount about alcohol and the appropriate amounts from them. Thank you!.” “‘They were fabulous and educated both adults and teenagers in my house.”

Website

https://www.drinkaware.ie/