University of Helsinki
Anu Katainen serves as PI in a new CEACG-project “Affecting adolescents’ images of alcohol use: An evaluation of the online alcohol marketing strategies and the impact of the new Finnish Alcohol Act“. It is part of the Academy of Finland’s venture “Forging ahead with research , that aims at concretizing research of previous Academy-funded projects
The project serves as a continuation of CEACG’s research on young people and alcohol, and specifically how they view alcohol marketing. In two recent projects – Katainen’s own Academy-funded post doc study (2012-2015), and an EU-study on alcohol advertisement (2015) – adolescents’ images of alcohol use and adolescents’ exposure on alcohol advertising have been studied in new ways. In January 2015, while these projects were running, Finland introduced a globally unique new legislation that regulates the contents of online alcohol marketing especially in view of protecting minors. The new project will serve as the first evaluation of this major policy change specifically designed to restrict alcohol marketing on social media.
The project, which has been planned and designed by professor Thomas Babor and Matilda Hellman, among others, is part of a larger international endeavor. The overall objective is to shed light on the possibilities that legislators and policy-makers have at their disposal for regulating online marketing and commercial messages that may encourage or normalize lifestyles and behaviors that may jeopardize people’s wellbeing and health, in this case alcohol use.