Alcohol’s Harm to Others in Australia: Patterns, Costs, Disparities and Precipitants

<p dir="ltr">This policy brief summarises the latest estimates of how many people are affected by alcohol’s harm to others. This is the harm from drinking that occurs, not to oneself from one’s own drinking, but from the drinking of others, including intimate partners, family members, friends, coworkers and members of the public. Harm from others’ drinking can occur in multiple ways across Australia in a single year. This research includes information from the 2021 Australian Alcohol’s Harm to Others Survey data, underlining the array of harms people commonly experience. Data from national and state level statistics on harms from health, social assistance, police and justice agencies that respond to harms from others’ drinking are also presented. The response agency data outlines the severe end of the harm spectrum. Our study also provides information from interviews on experiences of participants affected by others’ drinking. Additionally, we present our analyses on the impacts of others’ drinking on quality of life and estimate the economic costs to society of others’ drinking.</p>