We've got a shiny new report (full of lovely graphs) all about the no/low alcohol drinks market in Great Britain. How big is the market compared to for standard alcohol and how has it grown recently, how do prices compare, who drinks these products etc. We've got answers to all these questions:

Last chart for now - an update to this comparison of age trends in drug and alcohol deaths in Scotland. As much as the population rates are similar for both causes, the age patterns are *very* different, with drug deaths peaking in the 40s and alcohol deaths in the 60s.

A couple of bonus graphs - comparing today's alcohol-specific death figures for Scotland, with drug-related deaths trends published last month. The good news is that both fell in 2024, although drug-related deaths remain *way* above their levels 20 years ago.

New figures from National Records of Scotland out today show that alcohol-specific deaths in Scotland fell by 7% to their lowest level since 2019, and are now back in a similar place to where they were before the introduction of Minimum Unit Pricing in 2018. This is obviously good news...🧵

Other exciting news - my brilliant colleague Lucy Burke has had her 1st PhD paper published in BMJ Public Health. It looks as associations between the reasons why we drink alcohol and whether we drink no- and low-alcohol drinks and has some important implications for the NHS 10-year plan.

We've just launched a website showcasing our research on pub closure! Each 'long-read' explores the story of a closed pub and its social and cultural significance, drawing on field visits, archival research and extensive interviews with those connected to it. Links below!

Extremely proud and a bit jealous that my excellent colleagues @fieldmatt.bsky.social and Inge Kersbergen have won this year's Ig Nobel Peace prize for showing that being a bit tipsy makes you better at speaking Dutch. arstechnica.com/science/2025...

Found a good bird on my commute this morning.

Scotland published their drug-related deaths figures for 2024 last week. For only the second time since 2013 they show a fall year-on-year, so while they remain very high by historical standards, this is at least a sign of progress in the right direction. Here's a 🧵of a few graphs...

I didn’t get an alert. Does that mean that I’m extremely cool, or on some hitlist somewhere?

Oh, this is very good advice and extremely generalisable beyond economics.

Looking to do a PhD in demography, health, data science? Oxford Demography (LCDS) is recruiting to fill TWO positions! See Charlie's posts below for specifics. Come join us in the beautiful (albeit a bit rainy) Oxford!! 👩‍🏫📊🌦️

📢 New SARG paper 📢 This study aimed to investigate whether drinking occasion characteristics differ between those who moderate their drinking and those who do not, and among different subtypes of moderators. #alcoholresearch #publichealth

🎉 Huge congratulations to SARG researcher @ambercopeland.bsky.social who has secured almost £600k funding from the @wellcometrust.bsky.social to develop a cutting-edge computational model that explores how a person's environment influences their attempts to cut down on alcohol. #PublicHealth

The Welsh Government @senedd.wales commissioned us to model the impact of minimum unit pricing (MUP) on alcohol consumption and harm in Wales. We found that increasing MUP would reduce harms, but inflation erodes its value. Read our news story for more on our findings 👇 #AlcoholPolicy

I do love me a weird old map or a map of weird old things

Amazingly, every sentence manages to be a bit more Florida than the last.

New paper on changes in sales of alcohol and alcohol-free/low-alcohol products in January, and whether these changes drive longer term trends! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Led by @aishamoolla.bsky.social @jholmessheff.bsky.social @voodooeconomics.bsky.social @jamiebrown.bsky.social

Can’t wait to introduce bird-based storage into my backup system

We've got a big new report out today, commissioned by the Welsh Government, modelling alternative options for the future of Minimum Unit Pricing in Wales. www.gov.wales/new-modellin...

Great blog post from SARG's @voodooeconomics.bsky.social explaining some of the latest findings from our @nihr.bsky.social funded project 'Reforming alcohol taxes in a cost-of-living crisis'. Find out more about the project on our website 👇 #publichealth @fohsheffield.bsky.social

How did the alcohol duty reform affect households? In our latest blog, Dr Luke Wilson explains @sarg-scharr.bsky.social's new analysis showing the reform mainly hit heavy drinkers & wealthier households 📉Low risk of worsening inequality 📈Likely public health gain www.ias.org.uk/2025/07/24/w...

Does anybody have a link to the Lib Dem 'analysis' behind this story? Did somebody just stick a straight line through the increase in deaths between 2019 and 2023 and extrapolate it (because that does suspiciously get to the same answer)? www.mirror.co.uk/news/health/...

I’ve been at the theatre all night (watching Tim Minchin, who was ace). Did I miss any football?

New inflation figures yesterday and I haven't posted this graph for a while, so here we go - average changes in price of food and drink categories since Jan 2021 relative to overall inflation. Wine, spirits and beer have all risen below inflation and less than most other food and drink.

Worth a read. We need to move beyond arbitrary categorisation of continuous variables or assuming that associations are linear - and use more flexible modelling approaches to capture non-linear relationships. www.bmj.com/content/390/...

This new paper led by @sophiebright.bsky.social introduces the Intersectional Alcohol Inequities Framework (IAIF), a conceptual tool designed to visually illustrate how diverse factors across multiple levels and domains intersect to shape inequities in alcohol consumption and related harms.

*looks extremely askance in the general direction of @jholmessheff.bsky.social*

New paper klaxon - out now in the Journal of Public Health @fphuk.bsky.social We used detailed alcohol purchasing data from the 12 months prior to the recent alcohol tax reforms to estimate how different consumer groups might be affected by the changes to alcohol duties. doi.org/10.1093/pubm...

Estimating recent trends in alcohol sales in the United Kingdom from alcohol duty revenue buff.ly/7AZpCDW @victimofmaths.bsky.social @jschoeley.com

Our latest [open access] paper evaluated what happened to drug-related mortality risk among people with opioid dependence in Scotland during the Covid-19 pandemic. In short, they stabilised (at a very high level), and OAT remained highly protective. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The UK Gov 10-Year Health Plan suggests growing the alcohol free and low alcohol sector to reduce harm, but the evidence base for this policy is lacking. We'll be sharing the results of a survey on this topic on 22nd July at 10am. Sign up here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/mid-life-w...

The Government's big new 10 year health plan has finally been published. In spite of lots of talk about moving towards prevention rather than treatment, there is basically no meaningful alcohol prevention policy here. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/686638...

Join us 15 July, 12–1pm for a free webinar. Whether you're curious about starting a podcast, pitching your work to journalists, or responding when they come to you.. this event will offer practical insight on sharing your research with integrity, impact, and confidence. Sign up: tinyurl.com/3bcw8juu

Another push for this @afsguk.bsky.social funded research associate position that will use advanced stats to explore predictors of treatment retention in NHS gambling services. jobsite.sheffield.ac.uk/job/Research... Please share and, if it’s a good fit for you, apply! Deadline 11th July

Good life choices.

New data for 2024 are in. A long-term view on the meteoric rise and unabated dramatic fall of China's wine consumption and production. China's wine consumption peaked in 2017 and fell by 71%. China's wine production peaked in 2012 (!) and fell by 84%

Why is youth drinking in decline? Listen to our latest podcast to hear why it's more than any one cause, and needs to be understood from a broader sociological position of generational change. Ft. @jholmessheff.bsky.social and @amypennay.bsky.social Listen here: www.ias.org.uk/podcast/why-...

Amid all the talk about the Government's cuts to health and disability benefits, it's worth pausing to reflect on the backdrop: a large and growing number of adults in the UK are in poor health. Today we got new high-quality data on the prevalence of mental health conditions across England...

I've written a new blog post for our shiny @sarg-scharr.bsky.social website about our new @addictionjournal.bsky.social paper on recent trends in UK alcohol duty revenue and what this means for alcohol consumption and public health sarg-sheffield.ac.uk/blog/what-uk...

In our latest SARG Blog post, @victimofmaths.bsky.social shares insights from a recent study on UK alcohol tax data, examining shifts in sales trends since COVID-19. He discusses the surprising divergence between overall consumption and rising alcohol-specific deaths, and what this means for policy.

SARG's @victimofmaths.bsky.social contributes to this @nature.com article exploring the reasons why the USA has lower life expectancy than other wealthy nations.

Great story here in @nature.com from @helenpearson.bsky.social on the state of health in the US and what happens when RFK's Make America Healthy Again rhetoric meets the evidence on what actually needs to change. Ft. this shocking graph on US health exceptionalism: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

RFK Jr wants to Make America Healthy Again. But is America really that unhealthy? I spoke with public health experts & data analysts to find out. My story for @nature.com and brief🧵 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Come for the insights into alcohol consumption since the start of the pandemic, stay for the cool compositional forecasting methods and pretty graphs.

This is the latest in an occasional series of papers where I try and convince alcohol policy researchers that demographic methods are cool and they should use them. See also this paper about alcohol and lifespan inequality. doi.org/10.1111/add....

Some exciting Monday afternoon reading here - Jonas Schöley and I have a new study in @addictionjournal.bsky.social using UK data on alcohol duty revenue to examine trends in alcohol sales and how these have changed since the start of the pandemic. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Some exciting Monday afternoon reading here - Jonas Schöley and I have a new study in @addictionjournal.bsky.social using UK data on alcohol duty revenue to examine trends in alcohol sales and how these have changed since the start of the pandemic. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

We know that Minimum Unit Pricing for alcohol has reduced harms in Scotland, but could a similar approach work for tobacco? Our new paper, led by @drduncgillespie.bsky.social is here with the answers: tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/earl...