Drinkwise

Under the DrinkWise constitution, the board must comprise eight (8) community members and six (6) industry representatives with the Chair being a community member. Current board members as of July 2022 are:

Community directors:

• Mr Neil Comrie AO, APM – Chair
• Hon. Kate Ellis
• Professor Niki Ellis OAM
• Hon. Rob Knowles AO
• Paul Sheahan AM
• Terry Slater AM
• Hon Amanda Vanstone
• Professor Judith Whitworth AC

Industry directors:

• Peter Hurley AO
• Robert Iervasi
• Angus McPherson
• Anubha Sahasrabuddhe
• Helen Strachan
• Michael Waters

To date, DrinkWise Australia has launched a range of social marketing campaigns and initiatives including Kids Absorb Your Drinking, Kids and Alcohol Don’t Mix, Drinking – Do it Properly and "You won't Miss a Moment...if you DrinkWise".

Launched in June 2008, the Kids Absorb Your Drinking campaign marked DrinkWise Australia’s initial step towards engaging generational change in attitudes to alcohol. The campaign was created to raise awareness of the importance of role-modeling behavior of parents about their consumption of alcohol. In a 2008 media release, DrinkWise cites research that supports the view that there is a strong positive correlation between the way parents drink and how their children grow up to drink. According to DrinkWise, children form their attitudes towards alcohol a long time before they’ve had their first drink by observing how their parents and other adults around them drink.[4]

In 2010 the Kids and Alcohol Don’t Mix campaign alerted parents to emerging clinical research undertaken by Professor Ian Hickie at the Sydney University mind and brain institute that indicated that alcohol can cause damage to the developing adolescent brain. The campaign challenged parents to put aside any existing beliefs about introducing alcohol to their underage adolescents and to encourage them to delay their children’s introduction to alcohol for as long as possible. The campaign empowers parents with facts and tactics via the DrinkWise website.[5]

In 2014, DrinkWise Australia launched an Australian first campaign designed to influence young adults (18–24 years) to drink responsibly – by moderating the intensity and frequency of binge drinking occasions. The Drinking – Do it Properly campaign aims to make the ongoing trend of drinking to get drunk less socially acceptable among young drinkers, and to encourage those already drinking in safe and moderate ways. The campaign was developed in response to the prevalence of poor drinking choices by young Australians aged 18–24 years. DrinkWise commissioned extensive quantitative and qualitative formative research as well as multiple rounds of concept testing research to ensure the campaign cut through with young adults.[6] To date, the campaign has been in receipt of numerous international and Australian awards.

Where a knowledge gap has existed DrinkWise Australia has commissioned independent academic research to ensure that its activities are underpinned by a sound evidence base:

• From Ideal to Reality: Cultural contradictions and young people’s drinking:[7] The first stage of this project resulted in a literature review that collected a range of data that addressed the topic and was published in 2008. This report is the result of qualitative research undertaken by NCETA that examined the socio-cultural influences on 14 to 24-year-old Australians' drinking and the analysis provides useful insights to better understand these influences.
• Drinking patterns in Australia, 2001-2007:[8] The Report is based on an analysis of data from 2001, 2004 and 2007 National Drug Strategy Household Surveys, and looks at trends in alcohol consumption, alcohol-related harm, alcohol beverage of choice, under-age drinking and factors associated with risky drinking populations.
• The influence of parents and siblings on children’s and adolescents’ alcohol use: a critical review of the literature:[9] A consortium consisting of Monash, Newcastle and La Trobe Universities undertook this review to document and critique the existing evidence (available up to 2009) concerning the role of parents and older sibling’s behaviors, attitudes and use of alcohol in influencing their children’s/siblings’ attitudes, behaviour and use of alcohol, within the broader social environment.
• Alcohol and the Teenage Brain: Safest to keep them apart:[10] Professor Ian Hickie, Executive Director of the Brain and Mind Research Institute at the University of Sydney reviewed the evidence regarding alcohol and the teenage brain and identified that alcohol can disrupt the brain development during the critical phase of growth that occurs from around 12–13 years of age until our early twenties.
• What a Great Night’; The Cultural Drivers and Drinking Practices among 14-24-year-old Australians:[11] A consortium consisting of Monash and Deakin Universities undertook this research project to identify the most salient cultural drivers of low risk and risky alcohol consumption by Victorian youth, located in inner and outer suburban settings plus provincial and rural locations in Victoria.
• Expressions of Drunkenness (400 Rabbits):[12] This book is the 10th in a scholarly series on alcohol in society published by the International Center for Alcohol Policies (ICAP) and provides an understanding of the historical origins of drunkenness; the biological explanations of intoxication; the language used to define this phenomenon; and modern-day drinking patterns.
• Sustaining a Reduction of Alcohol-Related Harms in the Licensed Environment: A Practical Experiment to Generate New Evidence:[13] This project was undertaken to develop a comprehensive prevention model that was capable of reducing alcohol-related violence and aggression, and a scientifically defensible research design to test the model in a variety of licensed environments in Australia and New Zealand.