Authors: Emma Disley, Alexandra Pollitt, Deirdre May Culley and Jennifer Rubin (RAND Europe)

This report, commissioned by the Responsible Gambling Fund (RGF), aims to ‘map the gaps’ in the current evidence base relating to harmful gambling. It sets out findings from a Rapid Evidence Assessment of academic and ‘grey’ literature, describing the quantity and quality of existing research in this field, and highlighting areas in which evidence and knowledge are sparse or lacking.

Edited by Peter Reuter (RAND) and Franz Trautmann (Trimbos Institute)

This document, produced by Rand Europe and Trimbos Institute for the European Commission Directorate-General for Freedom, Justice and Security, provides the key findings of a project assessing how the global market for drugs developed from 1998 to 2007 and describing drug policy around the globe during that period. To the extent data allows, the project assessed how much policy measures, at the national and sub-national levels, have influenced drug problems.

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.