Policies key to cutting $8bn workplace drug and alcohol bill

New research findings from Flinders University National Centre for Education and Training on Addiction (NCETA) show that comprehensive policies, and not just mandatory testing alone, are the key to reducing Australia’s estimated $8bn workplace drug and alcohol bill.

The NCETA research looked into how well Australian workplaces are dealing with drug and alcohol misuse and found that while policies were effective, almost a third of businesses had none in place.

The education centre claimed it’s been estimated that employee alcohol and other illicit drug use costs Australian businesses more than $8.9bn a year in lost productivity (Collins and Lapsey 2008).

The paper’s lead author, Dr Ken Pidd, examined information on 13,590 employed Australians from the National Drug Strategy Household Survey and said that even simple policies were associated with significantly decreased odds of high-risk drinking.

“There is growing interest in workplace policies as a strategy to prevent or manage alcohol and other drug (AOD) problems, and this research demonstrates, for the first time, that workplace policies are associated with lower levels of risky alcohol and drug use among employed Australians,” said Pidd.

“We conducted a secondary analysis of the 2010 National Drug Strategy Household Survey and explored the prevalence of AOD policies and their relationship with health behaviours.

“In terms of specific policy types, policies on ‘use’ and ‘use plus assistance’ were associated with significantly decreased odds of high-risk drinking, while ‘comprehensive’ policies were associated with significantly decreased odds of drug use.”

Pidd said that participants were asked to indicate from 10 multiple response options which drug and alcohol policies their employers had in place and to indicate frequency of use of various substances in the last 12 months.

“After controlling for demographic characteristics, having any AOD policy in place was associated with significantly decreased odds of high-risk compared to low-risk drinking, but did not significantly predict drinking at risky levels or drug use,” said Pidd.

He said that one of the specific findings about which policies actually worked was particularly relevant for small businesses.

“Only two types of policy were found to be significantly associated with reduced alcohol consumption: ‘use’ and ‘use plus assistance’. That is, policies addressing AOD use at work and the provision of information, education and/or assistance regarding AOD may effectively prevent/reduce high-risk alcohol consumption,” said Pidd.

“This is an important finding for smaller organisations which may not have the resources to implement comprehensive policies, but may be able to readily introduce simple but effective AOD use policies.”

Because ‘use’ and ‘use plus assistance’ were the most common types of policy reported by participants, Pidd said many Australian organisations are already taking promising steps towards minimising high-risk alcohol consumption among employees.

The study found inconsistent relationships between the existence of AOD policies and prevalence of risky alcohol or drug use by workers within industry groups.

Mining was in the top 10% of risky and high-risk drinking, and also in the top 10% of policy prevalence. In contrast, construction, accommodation and food services, agriculture, forestry and fishing demonstrated high rates of substance use but only moderate-low levels of policy implementation.

The utilities industry was found to have very high policy implementation but lower rates of substance use.

The research paper will be published in the International Journal of Drug Policy.

Image credit: ©iStockphoto.com/nazdravie

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