Habits, consumption and public control

When the Finnish alcohol law was reformed in January 2018, the availability of alcoholic beverages in grocery stores increased. The percentage of alcoholic content for retail sales was raised from 4.7% to 5.5%, and the requirement of production by fermentation was abolished. Uusitalo and colleagues (2022) have studied how the inclusion of strong beers, ciders, and ready-to-drink beverages in grocery stores impacted on alcohol purchases. The researchers of the study have come up with an innovative way of avoiding empirical uncertainties pertaining to self-reporting and low survey participation. Over 47 000 loyalty card accounts from the largest food retailer in Finland have been analyzed, covering the time period between 1 January 2017 and 31 December 2018. The study shows no overall change in the total purchases of alcohol or beer but a small increase in ready-to-drink beverages. Total alcohol purchases increased only in the three highest income groups, but decreased in the two lowest groups. The study still concludes on a classic alcohol policy note: the authors see that higher prices probably curbed the expected increased purchases among lower income groups and younger consumers.

Selin and Nyrhinen (2022) estimate how gambling policy positions of mainstream newspapers evolved between 2004 and 2020. Their study shows that there has been a clear shift in the gambling policy positions of the major Finnish newspapers towards a public health framing, including an increased acknowledgement of the importance of prevention and reduction of gambling harm.

Salonen and colleagues (2022) make use of national registers to examine the diagnosed prevalence of gambling disorder (GD) by age and gender in Finland. Nordic registers provide unique opportunities for research, as they are population-based and nationwide, reducing the risk for selection bias (Laugesen et al. 2021). Through personal identity numbers they also provide the possibility of individual-level linkage of several registries. Salonen and colleagues (2022) found that although the annual prevalence of GD has increased over the years, it was notably low in registers, compared to survey-based results. This seems to indicate that GD is not systematically screened for and remains underdiagnosed in the healthcare system.

The last contribution of this issue concerns a scale to evaluate professionals’ attitudes towards people with problem gambling in the Japanese context. Katayama and colleagues (2022) arranged 12 workshops in Japan targeted at mental health professionals who consult people with gambling problems. The Gambling and Gambling Problem Perception Questionnaire (GGPPQ) showed good internal consistency and good concurrent validity with participants’ self-rating of their knowledge, general confidence, frequency of working with clients who have gambling problems, and experience in attending workshops. The workshops tseemed to have a positive influence on the attitudes of the participating medical doctors, nurses, social workers, clinical psychologists, and other professionals. The authors conclude that the GGPPQ seems to work as a valid tool to measure the attitudes of healthcare professionals towards people with gambling problems.