Professor Martin McKee
Cluster Title: The REAP cluster: Research for Effective Alcohol Policies
Area of interest
Alcohol presents major problems to the health of the public and to society. The scale of those problems faced in Britain is particularly challenging when comparisons are made with other similar countries. There is a clear need to take action quickly, and most experts now agree that organising activities to tackle alcohol problems in local communities across the country will be important for success. Comprehensive national policies have only recently been introduced in Britain, and there is a lot of variability in how they have been applied in different places. Although this is partly because they have been designed to be responsive to local needs, it is also because we currently have very limited information about what works best. Studies which have taken place in other countries can provide us with information that could be very helpful in making plans in Britain, but we need to assess them carefully to consider how relevant they may be. We also need to know what is currently happening in our local communities, and to find out the views of the public and of people working in local government, health, crime prevention and other services about how they would like to be involved in future research. Doing this work will involve building relationships between researchers and key people in communities across the country. When we have completed these tasks, we will be in a position to suggest the kinds of local initiatives most likely to work, and how best to find out whether or not these initiatives really will make a difference to alcohol problems once they are implemented.
Policy direction
Although the international evidence-base for effective policies has developed considerably in recent decades, alcohol-related harms are nevertheless rising. British national alcohol harm reduction policies have recently begun to address this situation, but their future success will depend critically on the implementation of effective community-level interventions. British research activity on alcohol policies has been relatively limited, with the result that the national evidence base is patchy. British work has, however, been prominent in the literature on complex interventions, which provides a significant theoretical perspective for us. This complements the environmental perspective on the prevention of alcohol problems, which has formed the principal theoretical framework for international community-level alcohol interventions. Important effects on population-level outcomes have been achieved in previous studies of community interventions elsewhere. There has been no previous attempt to extend these findings to Britain. Successful conduct of innovative research in this area has the potential to generate new knowledge on community-level alcohol interventions in the context of contemporary British society. Our work will both identify the most promising components of existing British community responses and evaluate the transferability of interventions found to be effective elsewhere. Case studies will examine the evaluation challenges involved, and attitudes of key stakeholders will be assessed to ensure the acceptability of future study methods. All of our research is thus directed towards contributing to policy and practice with the ultimate goal of reducing the problems caused to British society by alcohol.
Co-Investigators (steering group)
Dr. Jim McCambridge
Prof. Paul Wallace
Prof. Mark Petticrew
Dr. Chris Bonell
Collaborators
Dr. Elizabeth Allen
Dr. David Ball
Dr. Lyndal Bond
Dr. Alan Brennan
Dr. Annie Britton
Prof. John Cairns
Prof. Woody Caan
Dr. Steven Cammiss
Prof. Jonathan Chick
Dr. Patricia Conrod
Dr. Mark Conner
Prof. Alex Copello
Dr. Steve Cummins
Prof. Robin Davidson
Prof. Colin Drummond
Prof. Diana Elbourne
Dr. Donald Forrester
Prof. David Foxcroft
Prof. Frances Gardner
Dr. Jan Gill
Prof. Christine Godfrey
Prof. Sir Andy Haines
Prof. Gerard Hastings
Prof. Nick Heather
Dr. Matt Hickman
Prof. Ray Hodgson
Dr. Chris Holden
Prof. Eileen Kaner
Dr. Jane Landon
Dr. Paul Lincoln
Dr. Karen Lock
Prof. Susanne MacGregor
Dr. John MacLeod
Prof. Colin Manchester
Dr.Sally MacIntyre
Dr. Petra Meier
Prof. Laurence Moore
Dr. Simon Moore
Dr. Elizabeth Murray
Dr. Kerry OBrien
Dr. Duncan Raistrick
Prof. Helen Roberts
Prof. Steve Rollnick
Prof. Tim Rhodes
Dr. Rachael Seabrook
Dr. Paschal Sheeran
Dr. Nicola Shelton
Dr. Don Shenker
Prof. John Strang
Prof. Betsy Thom
Dr. James Thomas
Dr. Gillian Tober
Prof. Robin Touquet
Dr. Russell Viner