News & Media

A team of nine will be travelling from Sheffield to Australia in May to share their work with alcohol researchers from across the world.

The KBS Symposium takes place in Fremantle from 27-31 May 2024, and will give the SARG team a valuable opportunity to talk about their current research into areas such as the public health impacts of alcohol-free and low-alcohol drinks, how changes to alcohol taxation policies affect consumer spending, and perceptions of drinking behaviours among first-year university students.

Presentations from the group will include:

• Colin Angus on 'Estimating the differential exposure of household groups to alcohol duty reforms in Great Britain'
• Lucy Burke on 'Does why we drink matter? Investigating associations between drinking motives and no- and low- alcohol consumption in Great Britain.'
• Laura Fenton on '"It was nice to feel like I was joining in": Investigating British women's experiences with no- and low- alcohol in pregnancy through the lens of theories of practice'
• Shangshang Gu on 'Social approval and university student drinking: evidence from the Sheffield Alcohol and Network Dynamics (SAND) Study'
• Maria Hanini on 'Modelling the impact of increasing availability of no- and low- alcohol drinks on alcohol consumption, health and health inequalities: a protocol'
• John Holmes on 'Are increasing sales of alcohol-free and non-alcoholic drinks associated with declines in alcohol sales? A time series analysis'
• Inge Kersbergen on 'The use of alcohol-free and low-alcohol drinks in attempts to reduce or stop drinking'
• Aisha Moolla on 'How do sales of alcohol and alcohol-free and low-alcohol drinks change during January? A time series analysis'

The team will also have the opportunity to participate in workshops and discussions on a broad range of topics including policy, licensing, treatment, youth drinking, marketing, abstention and drinking practices, among others. 

About the KBS Symposium

The 2024 event is hosted by Curtin University's National Drug Research Institute and is the 49th Annual Alcohol Epidemiology Symposium of the Kettil Bruun Society (KBS). The principal aims of the Society are to investigate social, epidemiological and cross-cultural research on alcohol use, to promote the exchange of scientific knowledge and experiences among researchers from various disciplines and to encourage international collaboration. 

The Symposium provides a forum where researchers involved in studies on alcohol can exchange ideas about their ongoing research. This includes studies of the determinants and consequences of drinking, drinking cultures and patterns as well as social and institutional responses to drinking related harms, prevention and care. Researchers come from a variety of disciplines, such as psychology, sociology, criminology, economics, history, and other sciences.