Authors: Avalon de Bruijn, Esther van den Wildenberg and Anouk van den Broeck (STAP)

The following report provides a comprehensive overview of the results of the monitoring work conducted by the participating NGOs in five European countries; Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Italy and The Netherlands. It summarizes the individual findings of the five European countries on four different topics in alcohol marketing: trends, volume, complaints and sports sponsoring.

This report is conducted as part of the Alcohol Marketing Monitoring in Europe (AMMIE) project. AMMIE is coordinated by the Dutch Institute for Alcohol Policy (STAP) and supported by The European Centre for Monitoring Alcohol Marketing
(EUCAM).

Author: European Comission

The brochure "Communicating EU Research & Innovation - A guide for project participants", which has recently been published by the European Commission, aims to offer a tool to better communicate about European research projects and their achieved results.

With a little creativity strategic communication efforts can help to show how project outcomes are relevant to everyday lives and how European collaboration has achieved more than would have been otherwise possible.

Author: Irmgard Eisenbach-Stangl (European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research)

On the search for factors explaining the changes of alcohol consumption in European countries one quickly comes across preventive activities to reduce alcohol-related problems and/or alcohol consumption mostly taken by the state and occasionally also by other stakeholders such as e.g. the economy or social movements. Looking at them it becomes as quickly clear that the impact of prevention measures on consumption is everything else but simple.

The great diversity of preventive measures offers inspiration and orientation as well as an excellent occasion to evaluate, reconsider and improve interventions. Unfortunately the interesting research field is underdeveloped and until today misses a common reference frame that allows and facilitates comparisons. The Policy Brief intends to contribute to the development of such a frame.

Authors: Romano M, Osborne LA, Truzoli R, Reed P

The study explored the immediate impact of internet exposure on the mood and psychological states of internet addicts and low internet-users. Internet addiction was associated with long-standing depression, impulsive nonconformity, and autism traits. High internet-users also showed a pronounced decrease in mood following internet use compared to the low internet-users. The immediate negative impact of exposure to the internet on the mood of internet addicts may contribute to increased usage by those individuals attempting to reduce their low mood by re-engaging rapidly in internet use.

Authors: Craig S. Ross (Virtual Media Resources), Avalon de Bruijn (Dutch Institute for Alcohol Policy) and David Jernigan (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health)

Regulators may attempt to reduce youth exposure to alcohol advertising by restricting times during which alcohol ads may be aired on television or radio. The Netherlands introduced such a policy and found that teenage advertising exposure increased following the time restrictions. This study uses simulation analysis and a comprehensive database of television alcohol advertising to demonstrate that time restrictions are likely to reduce advertising exposure to the youngest viewers while increasing exposure for the high-risk teenage population.