Health for all by the year 2000: alcohol and the Nordic countries

One of the European targets in the "Health for all by the year 2000" programme is to reduce alcohol consumption significantly by the turn of the century. This article describes how this target, and especially the 25% goal included in it, has been adopted in the Nordic countries. With the exception of Denmark, alcohol has for a long time been regarded as a serious public health problem, and the reduction of total consumption of alcohol has been held as one of the most important ways of combating alcohol problems. In the 1980s Sweden and Norway have accepted the European 25% goal with the least reservations. In Finland the target has been regarded as unrealistic. Yet Finland, like Iceland, has accepted the goal of reducing total alcohol consumption but left the amount unspecified. In Denmark, controlling total alcohol consumption has been consistently held to be an irrelevant way to reduce alcohol problems. The alcohol policy measures suggested to reach the targets are the classical ones: price increases, restrictions in alcohol availability, and more efficient information and education. One cannot, however, avoid the observation that very few concrete measures have been taken so far and that many forces work against a reduction in alcohol consumption. The European alcohol target has affected alcohol policy in the Nordic countries in terms of target setting and programme design. It remains to be seen whether the forces advocating more restrictive alcohol control policy will be strong enough to generate concrete action plans and implement the accepted targets in actual alcohol policy measures.