The avoidable costs of alcohol abuse in Australia and the potential benefits of effective policies to reduce the social costs of alcohol

This monograph estimates the proportion of Australian social costs of alcohol abuse which are potentially avoidable as a result of implementing appropriate public policy interventions, and the values of the potential benefits of the identified interventions.

Alcohol abuse in Australia is a serious problem whose social costs in 2004/05 have been estimated to be over $15 billion. The present study estimates the extent to which these costs could be reduced by the implementation of appropriate public policy interventions It indicates that it should be possible, over a period of time, to reduce these costs by approximately half.

The study arises from the participation of the authors as the lead authors in the development of International Guidelines for the Estimation of the Avoidable Costs of Substance Abuse, published by Health Canada. These guidelines represent the first major attempt to examine in detail the issues involved in estimating the avoidable costs of substance abuse—that is, those costs that would potentially be able to be eliminated or reduced if appropriate public policies were adopted.

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