Ottawa Public Health has issued a series of recommendations to change the local drinking culture after a report raised alarms about alcohol consumption in the city.
According to a new OPH report, 83 per cent of adults in Ottawa drink, 44 per cent of young adults say they binge drink (consuming at least four drinks on one occasion) and 42 per cent of those surveyed are considered at moderate to high risk of alcohol-related harm.
The harm can include alcohol poisoning, alcohol-related injuries or long-term health effects, such as liver damage.
The study also showed Somerset Ward has the second highest number of alcohol outlets in Ottawa per 1,000 people of legal drinking age. Rideau-Vanier, which includes the Byward Market, has the most.
Sources of data included an online survey, and information from groups such as police, paramedics, and the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario.
Among the solutions proposed in the report is a “community engagement approach” to help address the issue.
“We want to engage people from all walks of life: community leaders as well as stakeholders to come together and look for solutions,” said OPH program manager Jacqueline Roy.
In a recent presentation to the Ottawa Board of Health, Roy emphasized the importance of considering this culture shift as a series of “bite-sized projects.”
“Changing a social norm usually takes a generation,” she said. “It’s one of those issues we absolutely need to address on an ongoing basis, and be very, very persistent at doing so, so we can pick at it until we see some kind of reduction.”
“What we’re trying to show with this report is there are a lot of people who may not drink themselves but are affected by someone else’s drinking,” said OPH officer Nancy Langdon.
“And what we’d like to do is reframe it from an issue where people see it as their personal choice to an issue where people think, ‘Yeah, you know this affects our whole community.’”
However, there are some challenges to creating this culture shift.
“There certainly are a lot of obstacles, and it has a lot to do with how alcohol is framed,” said Langdon. “The fun side, and the social side of alcohol are widely promoted.”
“There’s a lot of factors in our society that make people want to drink alcohol,” said Dr. Alan Forster, vice-president of quality, performance and population health at the Ottawa Hospital. “I think to a certain extent we don’t view it as a drug that can have consequences.”
Forster also cited a “glorification” of alcohol consumption.
“Those societal views where you see a glorification of the behaviour, and where people don’t recognize the risks, I think can lead to problems,” he said.
Above all, the report and recommendations emphasize the importance of creating a dialogue rather than imposing tougher regulations.
“I’m not a prohibitionist,” said Dr. Isra Levy, Ottawa’s Medical Officer of Health. “I get called a prohibitionist when I talk about the fact that people end up dead because of alcohol.”
He added: “We believe the responsible thing to be doing is reminding people of the statistics, and working at all levels of government to try and ensure the culture of acceptance of these statistics is challenged.”