A public health approach to gambling regulation: countering powerful influences.

Often portrayed as a harmless leisure activity in the UK, gambling is being increasingly recognised as a public health concern. However, a gambling policy system that explicitly tackles public health concerns and confronts the dependencies and conflicts of interest that undermine the public good is absent in the UK. Although there is a window of opportunity to change the gambling policy system, with the UK Government's launch of a review of the Gambling Act 2005, the adoption of a comprehensive and meaningful public health approach is not guaranteed.

The case for developing a cohesive systems approach to research across unhealthy commodity industries.

Objectives: Most non-communicable diseases are preventable and largely driven by the consumption of harmful products, such as tobacco, alcohol, gambling and ultra-processed food and drink products, collectively termed unhealthy commodities. This paper explores the links between unhealthy commodity industries (UCIs), analyses the extent of alignment across their corporate political strategies, and proposes a cohesive systems approach to research across UCIs.

Methods: We held an expert consultation on analysing the involvement of UCIs in public health policy, conducted an analysis of business links across UCIs, and employed taxonomies of corporate political activity to collate, compare and illustrate strategies employed by the alcohol, ultra-processed food and drink products, tobacco and gambling industries.

Setting Limits: Gambling, Science and Public Policy-summary of results.

The gambling industry has grown into a global business in the 21st century. This has created the need for a new emphasis on problem prevention. This article highlights the core themes of the book Setting Limits: Gambling, Science and Public Policy, taking a broad view of the consequences of gambling for society as a burden on health, well-being and equality.

Measuring Coping Among Family Members with Substance-Misusing Relatives: Testing Competing Factor Structures of the Coping Questionnaire (CQ) in England and Italy.

The Coping Questionnaire measures affected family members' responses to their relatives' substance misuse related problems. The Coping Questionnaire examines three main coping strategies: engaged, tolerant-inactive, and withdrawal coping. The aim of the current study was to compare competing conceptual measurement models across two countries, including one-factor, three-factor, and higher order factor models.

Systems Thinking as a Framework for Analyzing Commercial Determinants of Health.

Unlabelled: Policy Points: Worldwide, more than 70% of all deaths are attributable to noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), nearly half of which are premature and apply to individuals of working age. Although such deaths are largely preventable, effective solutions continue to elude the public health community. One reason is the considerable influence of the "commercial determinants of health": NCDs are the product of a system that includes powerful corporate actors, who are often involved in public health policymaking.

Coping strategies and support structures of addiction affected families: A qualitative study from Goa, India.

Introduction: Despite the large burden of a relative's drinking on their family members, the latter's perspectives and experiences are largely neglected. The aims of this article are to assess the coping strategies used by affected family members (AFMs) in Goa, India, and to examine the nature of the support they have for dealing with their drinking relative.

Method: In-depth interviews were conducted with adult AFMs selected through purposive and maximum variation sampling.

Psychosocial interventions for addiction-affected families in Low and Middle Income Countries: A systematic review.

Aim: To review the literature on psychosocial interventions for addiction affected family members in Low and Middle Income Countries (LMIC).

Methods: A systematic review with a detailed search strategy focussing on psychosocial interventions directed towards people affected by addiction without any gender, year or language specifications was conducted. Identified titles and abstracts were screened; where needed full papers retrieved, and then independently reviewed.

[Cost-effectiveness of a brief intervention to support indigenous women in Hidalgo (Mexico) who live with alcohol abusers].

Objective Estimate the cost-effectiveness ratio of a five-step brief intervention aimed at reducing the stress and symptoms of depression caused by living with an alcohol abuser. Methods The cost-effectiveness analysis was carried out with a decision tree, based on symptoms of depression measured on the CES-D scale. The effectiveness of the brief intervention was evaluated by comparing a group of indigenous women who received the intervention (n = 43) with a similar group who did not (n = 30).

Could the Substance Misuse of a Relative be an Important Factor for Those Seeking Help for Anxiety and Depression? A Preliminary Prevalence Study within Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT).

Background: The psychological difficulties and emotional impacts resulting from the substance use of close relatives constitute a large, underestimated and frequently unidentified health burden. The development of primary care mental health services in response to the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies initiative provides an opportunity to investigate this in more depth.

Aims: A preliminary exploration of prevalence of IAPT service-users being treated for moderate-severe depression and/or anxiety who report that they have relatives with alcohol and/or drug problems.

Ahead of its time: 40 years after the advice versus treatment family study.

Griffith Edwards' proposal for the alcohol 'treatment versus advice' study--also known as 'the family study'--illustrates how ahead of his time he was. The sample consisted of 100 married men who attended with their wives for a comprehensive assessment. Those randomized to 'advice' were told that the responsibility for attaining the goal of abstinence lay in the patient's hands, supported by his wife, that no further intervention was indicated, but that the research social worker would 'keep a watching brief' by visiting the home every 4 weeks for 12 months.

Heavy drinking days and mental health: an exploration of the dynamic 10-year longitudinal relationship in a prospective cohort of untreated heavy drinkers.

Background: Identifying dominant processes that underlie the development of other processes is important when evaluating the temporal sequence between disorders. Such information not only improves our understanding of etiology but also allows for effective intervention strategies to be tailored. The temporal relationship between alcohol intake and mental health remains poorly understood, particularly in nonclinical samples.

Attitudes towards gambling in Finland: a cross-sectional population study.

Background: Attitudes towards gambling influence gambling behaviour but also reflect the existing gambling policy in a society. However, studies examining general attitudes towards gambling at the population level are scarce. The first aim of this study was to investigate general attitudes of the Finnish population towards gambling.

Addiction in the family is a major but neglected contributor to the global burden of adult ill-health.

This paper offers a conceptual overview of a neglected field. Evidence is presented to suggest that, globally, addiction is sufficiently stressful to cause pain and suffering to a large but uncounted number of adult affected family members (AFMs), possibly in the region of 100 million worldwide. A non-pathological stress-strain-coping-support model of the experience of AFMs is presented.

Gambling in Britain: the application of restraint erosion theory.

Aim: To provide an overview of gambling and problem gambling in Britain, including historical background, current regulations and the recognition, prevalence and treatment of problem gambling.

Methods: A new theory, Gambling Restraint Erosion Theory (GRET), is used as a framework for understanding the history of gambling regulation in Britain in the 20th century and evidence about the prevalence of gambling and problem gambling, as well as public attitudes towards gambling, in Britain in the first decade of the 21st century.

Findings: Restraints on gambling were progressively dismantled as regulation moved from partial prohibition, to tolerance, and then to liberalization by the turn of the millennium.

Women, alcohol and femininity: a discourse analysis of women heavy drinkers' accounts.

Qualitative interviews were conducted with 24 women who were heavy drinkers, as part of a larger, longitudinal study of heavy drinking in the West Midlands of England. Critical discourse analysis was used to analyse the interviews, and resulted in the identification of two main discursive constructions: drink as self-medication, and drink as pleasure and leisure. However, women need to resist and negotiate stigmatizing subject positions of the ;woman drinker' in order both to justify their drinking and to protect their moral status as 'good women'.

What was useful about that session? Clients' and therapists' comments after sessions in the UK Alcohol Treatment Trial (UKATT).

Aim: The aim of this study was to report and contrast the aspects of two therapies considered by clients and therapists to be most and least useful.

Method: In the UK Alcohol Treatment Trial (UKATT), 742 clients were treated by 49 therapists with up to three sessions of motivational enhancement therapy (MET) or up to eight sessions of social behaviour and network therapy (SBNT). After each treatment session, clients and therapists were asked to independently complete two sentences, one inviting a statement about the 'most useful' and the other about the 'least useful' thing that had happened during the session.

The relative efficacy of two levels of a primary care intervention for family members affected by the addiction problem of a close relative: a randomized trial.

Objectives: A randomized trial to compare two levels of an intervention (full versus brief) for use by primary health-care professionals with family members affected by the problematic drug or alcohol use of a close relative.

Design: A prospective cluster randomized comparative trial of the two interventions.

Setting: A total of 136 primary care practices in two study areas within the West Midlands and the South West regions of England.

Sociodemographic correlates of internet gambling: findings from the 2007 british gambling prevalence survey.

This study provides the first analysis ever made of a representative national sample of Internet gamblers. Using participant data from the 2007 British Gambling Prevalence Survey (n = 9,003 adults aged 16 years and over), all participants who had gambled online, bet online, and/or used a betting exchange in the last 12 months (n = 476) were compared with all other gamblers who had not gambled via the Internet. Overall, results showed a number of significant sociodemographic differences between Internet gamblers and non-Internet gamblers.