Research clearly shows a dose-response relationship between
alcohol and health issues such as cirrhosis of the liver. More
recent research has shown linkages between greater drinking and
greater problems such as interpersonal violence. A study of the
impact that the larger, cultural context of drinking in several
European countries may have on the relationship between drinking
and harm has found that this relationship is stronger in the
Baltic countries and Sweden than Italy. Results will be
published in the January 2012 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical &
Experimental Research and are currently available at Early View.
"Previous research on Western European countries has shown that
the strength of the relationship between alcohol and harm seems
to be contingent on the cultural context of drinking," explained
Jonas Landberg, a researcher at the Centre for Social Research
on Alcohol and Drugs and sole author of the study. "For example,
northern European countries, where drinking into intoxication is
more common, t