Projects & Research Partnerships

SPARC: Social Practice in Alcohol Research Collaboration

The SPARC project sought to understand how and why British drinking culture changed between 2001 and 2016.

Introduction

From 2001 to 2016, Britain experienced a historic peak and subsequent steep decline in alcohol use. This was accompanied by licensing reforms, a ban on smoking in pubs, debates about alcohol duty and minimum prices, media focus on 'Binge Britain' and 'Ladette' culture, and a new generation of young adults noted for their abstemious approach to alcohol.

These, together with major macroeconomic and social shifts, are thought to have produced fundamental changes in our drinking culture which are sparsely documented and poorly understood.

By combining rich contextual data on drinking occasions, new applications of theories of practice and sophisticated statistical analyses, this project aimed to address these challenges and provide new insights that are of direct relevance to policy and practice.

Work packages

The SPARC project was divided into three Work Packages:

Work Package 1 explored how British drinking changed from 2001 to 2016. It sought to identify the predominant types of drinking occasions seen, based on characteristics such as the occasion's purpose, location, timing, participants, amount and type of alcohol drunk, and other activities undertaken while drinking (e.g. eating). It examined if new types of drinking have emerged, which occasions became more or less common, how the characteristics of occasions changed and how these changes relate to the overall consumption trend.

Work Packages 2 and 3 tested a series of hypotheses which sought to explain trends in drinking occasions, use drinking occasions to explain population trends in consumption, and examine the impact of three major societal changes on drinking occasions, namely the 2008 recession, the 2003 Licensing Act and bans on smoking in pubs.

In developing explanations for observed trends and variations, researchers focused on under-researched and policy-relevant topics such as increased home drinking and drinking among women, drinking in middle- and older-age, variation in drinking cultures across geographic areas, the decline in young adults' drinking, the alcohol harm paradox and relationships between drinking and social roles such as parenthood and employment.

Key project information

This project was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/R005257/1].

Dates

July 2018 – July 2020

Funding

£519,391

Principal investigator

Petra Meier

Institutions involved

University of Sheffield
National Institute for Health and Welfare
Kantar Group

Key contact

john.holmes@sheffield.ac.uk

Papers

Holmes J, Sasso A, Hernández Alava M, Borges Neves R, Stevely AK, Warde A, Meier PS (2024) How is alcohol consumption and heavy episodic drinking spread across different types of drinking occasion in Great Britain: An event-level latent class analysis International Journal of Drug Policy DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2024.104414

Holmes J, Sasso A, Hernández Alava M, Stevely AK, Warde A, Angus C, Meier PS (2023) Change and stability in British drinking practices and culture between 2009 and 2019: A longitudinal latent class analysis of drinking occasions, SSM – Population Health, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2023.101548

Stevely AK, Mackay D, Alava MH, Brennan A, Meier PS, Sasso A, Holmes J (2023) Evaluating the effects of minimum unit pricing in Scotland on the prevalence of harmful drinking: a controlled interrupted time series analysis, Public Health. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2023.04.019

Warde A, Sasso A, Holmes J, Hernández Alava M, Stevely AK, Meier PS. (2023) Situated drinking: The association between eating and alcohol consumption in Great Britain, Nordic Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/14550725231157222 See also supplementary material.

Hardie I, Sasso A, Holmes J, Meier PS (2022) 'Understanding changes in the locations of drinking occasions in Great Britain: An age-period-cohort analysis of repeat cross-sectional market research data, 2001–2019, Drug and Alcohol Review. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.13562 

Sasso A, Hernández Alava M, Holmes J, Field M, Angus C, Meier P (2022) Strategies to cut down drinking, alcohol consumption, and usual drinking frequency: Evidence from a British online market research survey. Social Science & Medicine, 310 (115280). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.115280 

Hardie, I., Stevely, K., Sasso, A., Meier, P., Holmes, J.  (2022) The impact of changes in COVID-19 lockdown restrictions on alcohol consumption and drinking occasion characteristics in Scotland and England in 2020: an interrupted time-series analysis.  Addiction. DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1111/add.15794

Hardie I, Sasso A, Holmes J, Meier PS (2022) 'Understanding changes in the locations of drinking occasions in Great Britain: An age-period-cohort analysis of repeat cross-sectional market research data, 2001–2019, Drug and Alcohol Review. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.13562 

Meier PS, Holmes J, Brennan A, Angus C (2021) Alcohol policy and gender: a modelling study estimating gender‐specific effects of alcohol pricing policies. Addiction. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/add.15464

Stevely AK, Sasso A, Hernández Alava M, Holmes J (2021) 'Changes in alcohol consumption in Scotland during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic: Descriptive analysis of repeat cross-sectional survey data', Edinburgh: Public Health Scotland.

Stevely A, Holmes J, Meier P.  (2021) Combinations of Drinking Occasion Characteristics Associated with Units of Alcohol Consumed among British Adults: An Event-Level Decision Tree Modeling Study. Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/acer.14560

Stevely AK, de Vocht F, Borges Neves Lic R, Holmes J, Meier PS (2021) Evaluating the effects of the Licensing Act 2003 on the characteristics of drinking occasions in England & Wales: A theory of change‐guided evaluation of a natural experiment. Addiction. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/add.15451

Holmes, J., Angus, C., Sasso, A., Stevely, A. K., Meier, P. S. (2021) What Proportion of On-Trade Alcohol Is Served to Those Who Are Already Potentially Intoxicated? An Analysis of Event-Level Data.  Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. 85(5): pp.602-9.  https://doi.org/10.15288/jsad.2021.82.602

Stevely AK, Holmes J, Meier P (2020) 'Contextual characteristics of adults' drinking occasions and their association with levels of alcohol consumption and acute alcohol-related harm: A mapping review', Addiction, 115 (2), pp.218-29. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/add.14839

Stevely AK, Holmes J, McNamara S, Meier PS (2020) 'Drinking contexts and their association with acute alcohol‐related harm: A systematic review of event‐level studies on adults' drinking occasions', Drug and Alcohol Review, DOI: doi.org/10.1111/dar.13042

Room R, Greenfield TK, Holmes J, Kraus L, Livingston M, Pennay A, Törrönen J (2019) 'Supranational changes in drinking patterns: factors in explanatory models of substantial and parallel social change' Addiction Research and Theory, DOI: doi.org/10.1080/16066359.2019.1689963

Meier P, Holmes J, Warde A (2018) Social practice theory and the study of how we drink Addiction DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/add.14120

Meier PS, Warde A, Holmes J (2017) 'All drinking is not equal: how a social practice theory lens could enhance public health research on alcohol and other health behaviours', Addiction, 113 (2), pp.206-13. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/add.13895  See accompanying commentaries and response from the authors.

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