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GAPC 2017: Building advocacy skills to reduce alcohol inflicted harm in Slovenia

Matej Košir believes new and more effective measures are urgently needed by the European Commission and EU Member States to prevent alcohol inflicted harm.

“Governments and other responsible authorities have carried out a number of ineffective measures to prevent risky and harmful alcohol consumption and drink driving. Some policies and measures are proven to be successful but are still not fully included in many legislations and are not consistently implemented in practice,” said Mr Košir.

Matej Košir is the director of the Institute for Research and Development (UTRIP), a non-profit research institute that develops, implements and monitors programmes in the fields of youth risk behaviour, addiction prevention and health promotion in Slovenia and wider.

Mr Košir’s workshop at the 2017 Global Alcohol Policy Conference, How to Inform Policy- and Decision-Makers About Evidence-Based Alcohol Policy, acknowledged that advocacy skills are vital for public health researchers and practitioners to influence health related policies and decision-making processes.

“We are forging stronger relationships with policy- and decision-makers and other key stakeholders in the field, advocating for the use of research to inform policy and decision-makers about evidence-based policies, providing expert testimony, writing position papers, press releases and social media posts, and committing to ongoing advocacy,” said Mr Kosir.

In this short video, filmed at GAPC 2017 in Melbourne, Mr Košir provides further guidance of UTRIP’s plan to develop alcohol policy in Europe.

[vimeo id=”236701581″]

Editorial

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