SHAAP; Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems, 11-08-2026; Blog Post
Over the past few years, Community Alcohol Partnerships (or CAP) have become an increasingly prominent feature of alcohol harm reduction discussions in the UK. More than 350 local CAP schemes have now been established across the UK, with numbers growing rapidly in Scotland. When I began my PhD four years ago, there were just seven Scottish schemes. By the time I submitted my thesis, there were 32, and more have launched since then.
Despite this expansion, there is limited independent research on CAP. At the same time, it has become increasingly visible in alcohol policy debates, with industry organisations promoting CAP as an effective, alternative approach to reducing alcohol-related harm to population-level policy measures, such as Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) and alcohol licensing conditions. This growth in prominence, together with my interest in how alcohol industry-funded initiatives use ideas of place, community, and partnership, led me to explore CAP as a case study during my PhD.
What is ‘Community Alcohol Partnerships’ (CAP)?
CAP is an alcohol industry-funded organisation that establishes and supports local partnership schemes across the UK. Its stated aim is to reduce alcohol-related harm among young people by bringing together local organisations, including the police, local authorities, schools, charities, community groups, and alcohol retailers.
Local schemes typically combine alcohol education in schools and youth clubs; youth activities; responsible retailing practices; and wider community engagement, such as resident consultations. Although CAP operates through local partnerships, it is funded by companies that produce and sell alcohol, their trade associations, and other industry-funded corporate social responsibility (CSR) organisations.
Why does industry funding matter?
Research on the commercial determinants of health shows that industries producing unhealthy commodities, including alcohol, tobacco, and unhealthy food, can influence health policy not only through lobbying but also through CSR activities and industry-funded harm reduction initiatives.
Some public health actors argue that these initiatives serve several purposes: enhancing corporate image, building relationships with policymakers and local organisations, and promoting industry-favourable ways of understanding health problems and their solutions [1-5]. They have also argued that these initiatives may shift attention towards voluntary, industry partnership-based approaches, and away from population-level policy with stronger evidence of effectiveness. As a result, some public health actors describe CAP as part of a broader strategy of alcohol policy substitution.
Another area of concern relates to educational resources. CAP provides materials produced by other industry-funded organisations, such as Drinkaware, the Smashed Project, and Talk About Trust. Previous research examining these resources has found that they can promote industry-favourable narratives about alcohol, including misrepresenting health risks and emphasising individual responsibility while giving less attention to the wider drivers of alcohol harm (such as marketing and availability) [3, 4, 6-9].
Why has CAP attracted public health attention?
Despite CAP’s growing prominence, there is limited independent evidence evaluating CAP. A 2018 review by Petticrew and colleagues found limited robust evidence that CAP reduced underage alcohol harm, largely because CAP’s available evaluations relied on weak study designs [10]. The authors argued that CAP may serve alcohol industry interests by promoting targeted, education-based interventions for harm reduction, and by focusing attention on visible youth anti-social behaviour.
Despite these concerns, alcohol companies continue to promote CAP in policy consultations and parliamentary evidence sessions, including presenting it as an alternative to population-level measures, such as MUP [10, 11]. Most recently, the Scotch Whisky Association’s manifesto for the 2026 Scottish Parliamentary Elections called for government support to establish further CAP schemes across Scotland.
What kind of harm do CAP focus on?
One aspect of CAP that particularly interested me was the type of alcohol harm it seeks to address. Many CAP activities focus on underage drinking, alcohol-related youth anti-social behaviour (ASB), and other visible community issues, such as litter. These are important concerns for local communities and can affect neighbourhoods. However, alcohol harm extends far beyond these issues. Alcohol contributes to a wide range of health conditions, inequalities, and pressures on health and social care systems. Much of this harm occurs among adults and is not necessarily visible in the same way as street drinking or youth anti-social behaviour.
This raises important questions about how alcohol harm is framed and which problems receive policy attention. Some public health researchers have argued that this emphasis on youth ASB reflects wider alcohol industry preferences for targeted interventions that focus on a minority of drinkers, rather than population-level approaches that seek to reduce overall consumption [10, 12, 13]. In doing so, it frames alcohol consumption as a behavioural problem and may support industry reputational management functions. This is particularly relevant given that CAP is increasingly promoted within wider alcohol policy debates as an alternative to measures such as MUP.
My PhD research
What particularly captured my interest was CAP’s emphasis on ideas such as community, partnership, and place/local. CAP presents itself as empowering communities through local solutions and partnership working. These narratives are compelling as they suggest that complex social problems can be addressed by working together, supported by and with the alcohol industry.
My PhD research explored what these ideas meant in practice. I examined how CAP presents itself, how alcohol industry organisations discuss CAP in policy debates, and how local CAP partners (public and third-sector organisations) understand and navigate participation in these schemes. More broadly, my research examines how ideas of place, community, and partnership are used within the alcohol industry’s CSR, and the implications for public health. These questions are increasingly relevant as governments, public bodies, charities, and community organisations are asked to engage with a growing range of partnership-based approaches to public health challenges.
At the end of May 2026, I successfully defended my PhD, and I am now preparing publications and non-academic outputs based on the research. Over the coming months, I look forward to sharing the findings. I hope this work will provide independent evidence to support organisations navigating complex relationships with industry-funded initiatives and contribute to informed local and national decision-making on alcohol harm reduction.
References
1. Maani, N., M. Ci van Schalkwyk, and M. Petticrew, Under the influence: system-level effects of alcohol industry-funded health information organizations. Health Promotion International, 2023. 38:6. Available here.
2. Pietracatella, R. and D. Brady, A New Development in Front Group Strategy: The Social Aspects Public Relations Organization (SAPRO). Frontiers in Communication, 2020. 5:24. Available here.
3. Hawkins, B., A. Durrance-Bagale, and H. Walls, Co-regulation and alcohol industry political strategy: A case study of the Public Health England-Drinkaware Drink Free Days Campaign. Social Science & Medicine, 2021. 285:114175. Available here.
4. Mialon, M. and J. McCambridge, Alcohol industry corporate social responsibility initiatives and harmful drinking: A systematic review. European Journal of Public Health, 2018. 28:4. Available here.
5. Yoon, S. and T.-H. Lam, The illusion of righteousness: corporate social responsibility practices of the alcohol industry. BMC Public Health, 2013. 13:630. Available here.
6. van Schalkwyk, M., Petticrew, M., Maani, N., Hawkins, B., Bonell, C., Katikireddi, SV., Knai, C. Distilling the curriculum: An analysis of alcohol industry-funded school-based youth education programmes. PLOS ONE, 2022. 17:1. Available here.
7. Petticrew, M., M.C.I. van Schalkwyk, and C. Knai, Alcohol industry conflicts of interest: The pollution pathway from misinformation to alcohol harms. Future Healthcare Journal, 2025. 12:2. Available here.
8. Maani Hessari, N., et al., Alcohol Industry CSR Organisations: What Can Their Twitter Activity Tell Us about Their Independence and Their Priorities? A Comparative Analysis. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2019. 16:5. Available here.
9. Petticrew, M., et al., How alcohol industry organisations mislead the public about alcohol and cancer. Drug and Alcohol Review, 2018. 37:3. Available here.
10. Petticrew, M., et al., Community Alcohol Partnerships with the alcohol industry: what is their purpose and are they effective in reducing alcohol harms? Journal of Public Health. 2018. 40:1. Available here.
11. UK Parliament. 6 February 2024 – Prevention in health and social care – Oral evidence. 2024; Available here.
12. Petticrew, M., Fitzgerald, N., Durand, M., Knai, C., Davoren, M., Perry, I. Diageo’s ‘stop out of control drinking’ campaign in Ireland: An analysis. PLoS ONE, 2016. 11:9. Available here.
13. Hawkins, B. and C. Holden, Framing the alcohol policy debate: industry actors and the regulation of the UK beverage alcohol market. Critical Policy Studies, 2013. 7:1. Available here.
By Dr Abbie Irving, Recent PhD graduate, University of Edinburgh