Restricting or banning alcohol advertising to reduce alcohol consumption in adults and adolescents

Background Alcohol is estimated to be the fifth leading risk factor for global disability-adjusted life years. Restricting or banning alcohol advertising may reduce exposure to the risk posed by alcohol at the individual and general population level. To date, no systematic review has evaluated the effectiveness, possible harms and cost-effectiveness of this intervention. Objectives To evaluate the benefits, harms and costs of restricting or banning the advertising of alcohol, via any format, compared with no restrictions or counter-advertising, on alcohol consumption in adults and adolescents. Search methods We searched the Cochrane Drugs and Alcohol Group Specialised Register (May 2014); CENTRAL (Issue 5, 2014); MEDLINE (1966 to 28 May 2014); EMBASE (1974 to 28 May 2014); PsychINFO (June 2013); and five alcohol and marketing databases in October 2013. We also searched seven conference databases and www.clinicaltrials.gov and http://apps.who.int/trialsearch/in October 2013. We checked the reference lists of all studies identified and those of relevant systematic reviews or guidelines, and contacted researchers, policymakers and other experts in the field for published or unpublished data, regardless of language. Selection criteria We included randomised controlled trials (RCTs), controlled clinical trials, prospective and retrospective cohort studies, controlled before-and-after studies and interrupted time series (ITS) studies that evaluated the restriction or banning of alcohol advertising via any format including advertising in the press, on the television, radio, or internet, via billboards, social media or product placement in films. The data could be at the individual (adults or adolescent) or population level. Data collection and analysis We used the standard methodological procedures expected by The Cochrane Collaboration. Main results We included one small RCT (80 male student participants conducted in the Netherlands and published in 2009) and three ITS studies (general population studies in Canadian provinces conducted in the 1970s and 80s). The RCT found that young men exposed to movies with a low-alcohol content drank less than men exposed to movies with a high-alcohol content (mean difference (MD) -0.65 drinks; 95% CI -1.2, -0.07; p value = 0.03, very-low-quality evidence). Young men exposed to commercials with a neutral content compared with those exposed to commercials for alcohol drank less (MD -0.73 drinks; 95% CI -1.30, -0.16; p value = 0.01, very-low-quality evidence). Outcomes were assessed immediately after the end of the intervention (lasting 1.5 hours), so no follow-up data were available. Using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation approach, the quality of the evidence was rated as very low due to a serious risk of bias, serious indirectness of the included population and serious level of imprecision. Two of the ITS studies evaluated the implementation of an advertising ban and one study evaluated the lifting of such a ban. Each of the three ITS studies evaluated a different type of ban (partial or full) compared with different degrees of restrictions or no restrictions during the control period. The results from the three ITS studies were inconsistent. A meta-analysis of the two studies that evaluated the implementation of a ban showed an overall mean non-significant increase in beer consumption in the general population of 1.10% following the ban (95% CI -5.26, 7.47; p value = 0.43; I-2 = 83%, very-low-quality evidence). This finding is consistent with an increase, no difference, or a decrease in alcohol consumption. In the study evaluating the lifting of a total ban on all forms of alcohol advertising to a partial ban on spirits advertising only, which utilised an Abrupt Auto-regressive Integrated Moving Average model, the volume of all forms of alcohol sales decreased by 11.11 kilolitres (95% CI -27.56, 5.34; p value = 0.19) per month after the ban was lifted. In this model, beer and wine sales increased per month by 14.89 kilolitres (95% CI 0.39, 29.39; p value = 0.04) and 1.15 kilolitres (95% CI -0.91, 3.21; p value = 0.27), respectively, and spirits sales decreased statistically significantly by 22.49 kilolitres (95% CI -36.83, -8.15; p value = 0.002). Using the GRADE approach, the evidence from the ITS studies was rated as very low due to a high risk of bias arising from a lack of randomisation and imprecision in the results. No other prespecified outcomes (including economic loss or hardship due to decreased alcohol sales) were addressed in the included studies and no adverse effects were reported in any of the studies. None of the studies were funded by the alcohol or advertising industries. Authors' conclusions There is a lack of robust evidence for or against recommending the implementation of alcohol advertising restrictions. Advertising restrictions should be implemented within a high-quality, well-monitored research programme to ensure the evaluation over time of all relevant outcomes in order to build the evidence base.