Other Food Safety Issues

State and Local Public Policy Options for Raising Awareness of Alcohol Cancer Risk

Cancers attributable to drinking alcohol pose a severe public health burden, yet most consumers are not aware of the link between alcohol and cancer. This combination of high harm and low awareness presents policymakers with the rare opportunity to significantly improve public health by simply providing information to consumers. Cancer warning statements on alcoholic beverage labels, on alcohol advertising, and on signage at point-of-sale represent three low-cost options for doing so. This article explores the benefits and disadvantages of the three options, focusing in particular on the latter two, in which state and local governments have the potential to lead. Raising awareness of alcohol cancer risk may help to reverse trends towards higher levels of alcohol consumption and abuse, and even where raising awareness does not affect an individual’s drinking behavior, it may nevertheless foster support for other public policies that reduce harms associated with excessive alcohol use.