U.S. RIGHT TO KNOW;
Alcohol industry-funded (AIF) apps promoted to reduce alcohol consumption contain health misinformation and may encourage users to drink, potentially causing more harm than good, say researchers in a first-of-its-kind report.
In the study, published this month (October) in the journal Health Promotion International, researchers say industry-funded apps claim to help people make positive health decisions but are designed to undermine healthy behaviors for the sake of protecting profits. A 2015 review of alcohol-reduction apps similarly concluded the majority implicitly or explicitly promoted alcohol use, but it did not investigate their funding source.
Alcohol reduction tools typically allow users to monitor their alcohol consumption with blood alcohol calculators, AUDIT scores, and consumption trackers. However, researchers in the latest study show alcohol industry-backed apps provide significantly less accurate feedback and omit much more information on associated health risks, including cancer and cardiovascular disease, than apps that do not receive industry funding.
Apps to avoid
The industry-backed tools use “dark patterns“—which researchers say are strategies for influencing people to act against their best interests. This includes providing users with limited drink options in small serving sizes, which makes it impossible to check consumption against recommended guidelines. It also may lead users to believe they drink at lower risk levels than they actually are, at a time when more than 170,000 people die from excessive alcohol use each year in the US alone.
“Given their potential for direct harm and for replacing reliable sources, the public should be explicitly warned to avoid tools from industry-funded organizations like Drinkaware, Drinkwise, Cheers and Éduc’alcool,” says co-author Dr. Elliott Roy-Highley, a public health doctor and honorary lecturer at University College London’s Global Business School for Health.
“This study highlights how industry actors use digital behavior change tools to appear to be ‘doing good,’ while bypassing legitimate independent sources to promote industry narratives, spread health misinformation and nudge users towards increasing consumption.”
Several spokespeople for alcohol industry-funded digital apps denied the claims in news reports.
Problematic messaging
The latest study was conducted between June and August 2022. Researchers accessed alcohol consumption data (with a reported 738,000 downloads) from 15 of the most widely used apps promoted or developed by alcohol producers or organizations receiving alcohol industry funding. They compared data from 10 digital tools provided or referred by a national government or healthcare service (NGHS) not funded by the alcohol industry in the UK, the US, and four other countries. (Apple data was not available.)
Most tools provided self-control advice and non-personalized advice, such as eating before drinking alcohol and drinking slowly. But industry-backed tools, unlike independent sources, encourage “smart” or “responsible” drinking, which shifts responsibility away from the industry to users, researchers say.
The tools also downplay harms through problematic messaging, such as presenting happy images of people socializing and drinking, or pairing statements of risk with trivia.
Consider this example: “Serbia toasts with the word ‘Živeli!’ which means ‘Let’s live long!’” appears above “Alcohol is a depressant and…stops you doing things properly, like driving.”