Alcohol education initiatives in Scotland - A current perspective

Against a background of the official targets and strategies for reducing alcohol consumption by the year 2000, this paper provides a critical overview of selected alcohol education initiatives in Scotland over approximately the last five years. While not intended to be a comprehensive review of the effectiveness of alcohol education, the paper inevitably draws some attention to the absence of rigorous evaluation in many initiatives. On a more positive note, we conclude that the examples discussed in this paper illustrate the kinds of strategies for reducing consumption recommended by government. In particular, and perhaps due to the demographic nature of Scotland, there is clear evidence of liaison between national and local level activities, and of cooperation between the voluntary, private and public sectors, in a range of settings. However we have to wait until the year 2000 to know whether such strategies have achieved their target.