Public Health Tools for Holding Self-Regulators Accountable: Lessons From the Alcohol Experience

Abstract

Self-regulation is a common strategy used by industries to avoid or supplement statutory health and safety regulation of their products and practices. The public health experience with self-regulation in the alcohol industry provides methods and lessons relevant to health educators and advocates working in other public health fields. Methods for and examples and limitations of monitoring content and placement of marketing messages are described. The alcohol experience shows that, although self-regulation has many drawbacks in terms of protecting the health of the public, there are tools available for valid monitoring of self-regulated activities that, when combined with aggressive dissemination of results to media and policy makers, can make self-regulation more accountable and build an evidence base for effective measures to be taken.

Keywords

child/adolescent health mass media social marketing/health communication social policy substance abuse

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Anderson, P. , De Bruijn, A. , Angus, K. , Gordon, R. , & Hastings, G. ( 2009). Impact of alcohol advertising and media exposure on adolescent alcohol use: A systematic review of longitudinal studies. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 44, 229-243.

Austin, E.W. ( 2009). Receiver-oriented message analysis: Lessons from alcohol advertising. In A. B. Jordan , D. Kunkel , J. Manganello , & M. Fishbein (Eds.), Media messages and public health: A decisions approach to content analysis (pp. 192-210). New York, NY: Routledge.

Austin, E.W. , Chen, M.-J. , & Grube, J.W. ( 2006). How does alcohol advertising influence underage drinking? The role of desirability, identification and skepticism. Journal of Adolescent Health, 38, 376-384.

Babor, T.F. , Xuan, Z. , & Damon, D. ( 2010). Changes in the self-regulation guidelines of US Beer Code reduce the number of content violations reported in TV advertisements . Journal of Public Affairs, 10, 6-18.

Babor, T.F. , Xuan, Z. , & Proctor, D. ( 2008). Reliability of a rating procedure to monitor industry self-regulation codes governing alcohol advertising content. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 69, 235-242.

Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth. (2008 ). Youth exposure to alcohol advertising on television, 2001 to 2007. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth. (2010 ). Youth exposure to alcohol advertising in national magazines, 2001-2009. Baltimore, MD: Author .

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ( 2009). Alcohol-related disease impact software. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/ardi.htm

Federal Trade Commission. (2008). Self-regulation in the alcohol industry. Washington, DC : Author.

10.

Jernigan, D. , Ostroff, J. , & Ross, C. ( 2005). Alcohol advertising and youth: A measured approach. Journal of Public Health Policy, 26, 312-325.

11.

Johnston, L.D. , O’Malley, P.M. , Bachman, J.G. , & Schulenberg, J.E. (2010). Monitoring the Future National Survey results on drug Use, 1975-2009: Vol. 1. Secondary school students. Bethesda, MD: National Institute on Drug Abuse.

12.

The Marin Institute. (2008). Why big alcohol can’t police itself: A review of advertising self-regulation in the distilled spirits industry. Retrieved from http://www.marininstitute.org/site/images/stories/pdfs/08mi1219_discus_10.pdf

13.

National Research Council and Institute of Medicine. ( 2004). Reducing underage drinking: A collective responsibility . Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

14.

Sharma, L.L. , Teret, S.P. , & Brownell, K.B. (2010). The food industry and self-regulation: Standards to promote success and to avoid public health failures. American Journal of Public Health, 100, 240-246. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2009.160960

15.

Strickland, D.E. , Finn, T.A. , & Lambert, M.D. ( 1982). A content analysis of beverage alcohol advertising. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 43, 655-682.

16.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. ( 2010). Results from the 2009 National Survey on Drug Use and Health Vol. 1. Summary of national findings. Retrieved from http://oas.samhsa.gov/NSDUH/2k9NSDUH/2k9Results.htm

17.

Wallack, L. , Woodruff, K. , Dorfman, L. , & Diaz, I. ( 1999). News for a change: An advocate’s guide to working with the media. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

18.

World Health Assembly. (2010). WHA63/13: Global strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol. Retrieved from http://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA63/A63_13-en.pdf