Distilling the curriculum: An analysis of alcohol industry-funded school-based youth education programmes
Jan 21, 2022
Many people would be shocked to know that the alcohol industry funds school-based alcohol education programs. These programs are usually not easily identifiable as funded by the alcohol industry, but instead appear to be genuine public health initiatives. An article has been published in the PLoS One journal titled “Distilling the curriculum: An analysis of alcohol-industry-funded school-based youth education programmes”. While the article is focused on the UK, it does include alcohol-industry funded programs that are being offered in Queensland including “The Smashed Project” funded by Diago. The authors used a discourse analysis approach to analyse the content of the programs. The authors found that these programs promoted alcohol as a “normal” adult consumer product which young people must learn to “master.” The programs used ambiguous terms like “responsible drinking” whilst selectively misrepresenting harms including misinformation about the links between alcohol and cancer. The programs also ignored factors that are well known to increase alcohol related harms including price, availability and access.