published_or_final_version / Public Health / Master / Master of Public Health

Introduction The underage drinking problem is becoming a cause for concern in Hong Kong as young people are exposed to an environment with easy access to alcohol. In particular, the off-premise sales of alcohol to underage youth are entirely subject to the industry voluntary code of conduct. Without appropriate legislative changes and enforcement measures, underage youth in Hong Kong could find it relatively easy to obtain the alcoholic beverage in off-premise outlets. Different studies were published to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions for reducing the sale of alcohol to underage youth in off-premise outlets. Aim and Objectives 1. To identify the effectiveness of interventions on restricting off-premise alcohol sales to underage youth 2. To suggest policy and intervention measures to regulate the off-premise alcohol sales to adolescents in Hong Kong based on the findings presented in this review. Methods Literature in this review included articles published in the last 10 years (2003-2013). The literature search was undertaken in the following two pronged method. 1. To identify relevant articles, the following databases were used: PubMed and MEDLINE. The search term: "Alcohol Drinking/legislation and jurisprudence"[MeSH Terms] AND ("2003/01/01"[PDAT]: "2013/12/31"[PDAT]) AND ("adolescent"[MeSH Terms]) were applied. 2. Manual search was conducted according to the bibliographies and reference lists of the articles that were being reviewed. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied. Results Numerous articles have been identified regarding interventions to reduce underage access to alcohol in off-premises and shift retailers' behavior in the sale. Such interventions included, but were not limited to responsible beverage sales and service training, intensified compliance check, enhancement of non-compliance penalties, reward and reminder visit and media advocacy. Community based interventions targeting off-premises sale were found to be successful in affecting the behaviour of the retail staff. There was a variation in the magnitude of effects among the studies and this was associated with the intensity of the interventions and the publicity. A decaying effect of interventions was also observed. Conclusion This review identified that implementing a legal purchasing age combined with intensification of compliance check and enhancement of penalties were effective in reducing sales of alcohol to underage youth in off-premise venues. On the basis of the findings, policy suggestions for Hong Kong were presented. / published_or_final_version / Public Health / Master / Master of Public Health

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In this paper I will present my research about different kinds of social workers, and there way of looking at and working with adolescents alcohol use. To get my result, we interviewed eight social workers from four different organizations. The Interview participants were people working with adolescents on their spare time, and in the school environment. There were also participants representing social services and the police. The theory that we have chosen to apply to our thesis is systems theory. The results shows that professionals in Oskarshamn see that high school youth alcohol consumption generates large negative effects on the individual. One of the most complained of the impact of young girls drinking is so serious implications, as different forms of sexual exploitation. The result also shows that the preventive work is the focus of efforts to combat youth alcohol use.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has been shown to be highly prevalent during pregnancy, particularly for couples of low socioeconomic status. IPV poses an especially serious problem for pregnant women as it puts both mother and unborn child at risk for severe physical harm, including death. This investigation of potential risk factors for IPV during pregnancy examines alcohol use, stress, suspicion of infidelity, jealousy, and relationship discord from both a cross-sectional and longitudinal perspective. The overarching theoretical frameork for this study is based on Leonard's conceptual model of substance use and intimate partner violence in combination with evolutionary theory as discussed by Buss & Duntley's evolved homicide theory and Harris' social-cognitive theory. A sample of 180 pregnant women was collected in order to investigate 1) the extent to which alcohol use, stress, infidelity, jealousy, and relationship dissatisfaction predict intimate partner violence in this sample, and 2) to evaluate the potential moderating effects of alcohol use on the relationships between jealousy and intimate partner violence and stress and intimate partner violence. Results indicate that alcohol use was a salient predictor of several types of IPV victimization and the combination of partner alcohol use, jealousy, and suspicion of infidelity most strongly predicted severe physical victimization during the first 18 weeks of pregnancy. Results also indicate that alcohol mediated the relationship between jealousy and psychological and severe physical victimization. Implications for future research and clinical implications are discussed.

M.A. (Sociology) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Many parents and teachers are expressing concern about the drinking habits of our teenage population. At the present time there is little information available on the amount of drinking, frequency of drinking and with whom teenagers drink. The purpose of this study was to obtain as much information as was practically possible about the drinking patterns of Surrey high school students. The study utilized the single survey method to obtain information. A random sample of students was drawn from 15 Junior Secondary, Secondary and Senior Secondary schools within school district #36 (Surrey), British Columbia. 2485 letters were sent out and consequently 1013 students completed the questionnaires. 90.9% of the students surveyed had used alcohol at some time in their lives, with beer being the most regularly consumed alcoholic beverage. 27.8% of students drank to the point of being drunk, 32.4% drank once or twice a month and a further 30.3% every weekend. Parents played a role in introducing students to their first drink. They also drank with them and acted as a source of supply. 70.4% of students felt their drinking practices had no effect on their lives. Crosstabulations demonstrated there were certain different drinking practices among students when age, sex, type of school and demographic area were taken into consideration. Finally, conclusions were drawn and suggestions were mad regarding society's responsibilities towards our teenage population and their alcohol consumption habits. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

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Research on the female alcoholic indicates that women drink for different reasons than men. Rather than being a product of role conflict as it is in males, female alcoholism is frequently precipitated by stress, particularly marital stress. For exploratory purposes a group of women seen at a public alcoholism treatment clinic were divided into four categories: 1) Non-alcoholic wives of alcoholic men; 2) alcoholic wives of non-alcoholic men; 3) single alcoholic women; 4) alcoholic wives of alcoholic men. These groups were compared. for amount of personality disorganization, using the total number of abnormal scales on the clinical profiles of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, a personality test administered at the beginning of treatment. The investigator hypothesized that the alcoholic wives of alcoholics would demonstrate the most dysfunction, due to the unstabilizing effects of the alcoholic husband and the stress of marital interaction between two disorganized personalities. In contrast, the alcoholic woman married to the non-alcoholic husband would experience less stress and consequently less personality dysfunction without the problems created by an alcoholic husband. The dysfunction of the single alcoholic women was hypothesized to fall between the two marital categories and the dysfunction of the non-alcoholic wives of alcoholic males was hypothesized to be the least among the four categories, since these wives have been shown to have essentially normal personalities which become disorganized by their husbands' alcoholic episodes. As hypothesized, the non-alcoholic wives showed the least amounts of personality disorganization, but the alcoholic women showed an inverse relationship to the hypothesized order of dysfunction, i.e. the alcoholic women married to non-alcoholic men were most disorganized, according to numbers of abnormal MMPI scales, followed by single alcoholic women and then the alcoholic wives of alcoholic men. The differences among the alcoholic groups disappeared, though, when age was held constant, except in the group of older alcoholic women, where the inverse relationship remained. The results of this study raise questions about the adaptive and maladaptive used of alcohol within a marriage situation and the subsequent effects on personality.