Minimum pricing round up

Following yesterday's news, I was on BBC Radio Scotland this mornings discussing minimum pricing. Dr Alastair MacGilchrist, chairman of Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems, was on before me and Dr Sandesh Gulhane was on after me. It's worth listening to the whole thing. MacGilchrist still thinks minimum pricing worked despite alcohol-specific deaths hitting a 14 year high. Gulhane strongly disagrees, as any sane person would.

You can listen here. It was the first item on the show.

You can also read the UK Statistics Authority's reply to Dr Gulhane who complained about the Scottish government's misleading press release. 

 

The original version of the Scottish Government press release stated that:

“In their final report of a series, researchers said that ‘robust, independent evaluation’ and the best available, wide-ranging evidence drawing on 40 independent research publications, showed that the MUP has been effective in its main goal of reducing alcohol harm with the reduction in deaths and hospital admissions specific to the timing of MUP implementation”.

This wording might suggest to many readers that most or all of the studies referred to examined the health impact of MUP. But the evaluation report explains that of the 40 papers included, only eight provided evidence on alcohol-related health outcomes. The remaining 32 examined other potential effects of the policy such as on alcohol consumption, social outcomes, compliance by retailers and product prices. Of the eight papers which studied health outcomes, one looked at deaths and hospitalisations and found a beneficial quantitative impact on these outcomes. Based on the other seven papers, the report concluded that there was “no consistent evidence that MUP impacted on other alcohol-related health outcomes such as ambulance callouts, emergency department attendances and prescribing of medication for alcohol dependence”.

The Scottish Government press release and the PHS ‘at a glance’ document both referred to the results of the PHS/Glasgow/Queensland study. However, information about the level of uncertainty associated with the reduction in hospitalisations and deaths was not included in either output, despite being emphasised in the study. For example, the figures are estimates based on statistical modelling and the reduction in hospital admissions was not found to be statistically significant.

Summarising technical data, especially for a public audience, is challenging. Press releases, factsheets, tweets and other communications require condensed information, but it still serves users best to include caveats about the uncertainty or limitations of statistical evidence. In this case, caveats did not carry through from the final PHS report to the press release and ‘at a glance’ document.

 

Despite this ticking off, MacGilchrist insisted that there was 'no doubt' that minimum pricing saved lives. His temperance colleagues have also steered well clear of 'caveats about the uncertainty or limitations of statistical evidence'. It's lucky for them that the UK Statistics Authority doesn't monitor tweets.