Italy: First Ministerial National Conference on Alcohol

MORE HEALTH, LESS RISKS. BUILDING ALLIANCES FOR PEOPLE'S WELLBEING AND SAFETY.

The First Ministerial National Conference on Alcohol was held in Rome on the 20th and 21st October 2008.

The Conference has been promoted by the Ministry of Welfare (which now comprises the former Health, Labour and Social Affairs Ministries), in collaboration with the National Committee on Alcohol. The main objectives of the Conference were to raise awareness on the need to tackle a whole range of alcohol related problems and to identify priorities in order to implement alcohol policy development at national and regional level.

About 400 delegates attended the Conference, coming from all over the country. They included Ministers, policy makers at national, regional, and local level, members of Parliament, health professionals, members of scientific societies active in the alcohol and/or drugs field, members of self-help and active citizenship organizations, advocacy associations and media. This wide participation reflects the fact that the Conference was a long-waited event that many professionals and non professionals involved in the alcohol field felt as needed.

The Conference programme included plenary presentations, round-table discussions with key stakeholders and parallel sessions on different issues. Presentations in the plenary session were on the epidemiology of alcohol consumption and alcohol related impact and on lifestyles and drinking culture in Italy.

The international context was also presented, both by a contribution by Maria Renstrom from the Swedish Ministry on alcohol policy development at European Union and global level, and by the description of good practice examples from France and Germany on alcohol advertising and labelling in France (C. Riviere from ANPA) and alcohol policy measures in the last ten years in Germany (W. Farke).

The work in the parallel sessions provided a space for discussion in the following areas, with a facilitator and a rapporteur:

• Public and private treatment services for people with alcohol related problems
• Alcohol control policies: production, distribution and marketing strategies
• Role of civil society in tackling alcohol related harm
• Alcohol and young people: protecting children and minors from alcohol related harm
• Drink-driving and alcohol related problems in the workplace

The conference conclusions were drawn by the Vice-Minister in charge of alcohol policies, on the basis of the plenary presentations and of the parallel session work. The ministerial official document is not available yet, and it will be presented and discussed next month at the meeting of the National Committee on Alcohol.