A mandatory pregnancy warning was introduced by FSANZ in 2020 to advise the public of the potential harms of prenatal alcohol exposure. Two years post-introduction, uptake of the warnings appears to be slow, according to a study by The George Institute for Global Health at UNSW.
Due to industry pressure, a three-year implementation period was granted for the warnings. The George Institute’s study analysed the extent to which the mandatory warning had been applied to RTD alcohol product labels almost two years into the implementation period, finding only one-third of the assessed RTD products exhibited compliance.
RTDs were chosen as the study sample as they constitute the fastest-growing drinks category by volume, especially hard seltzers, which have a projected increase of 24 per cent between 2020 and 2025 in Australia.
Roy Morgan’s latest Alcohol Consumption Report found the number of Australian adults consuming RTDs had almost doubled since 2020. The data showed more than one-in-two Australians aged 18-34 (52.7 per cent) and over one-in-three aged 35-49 (39.2 per cent) consumed RTDs in the 12 months to March 2023.
The George Institute’s study, published in the APSAD Drug and Alcohol Review, said that given the dynamic nature of the market, it was deemed that RTDs were most likely to have had the opportunity to include the new pregnancy warning on product labels. RTDs are defined as beverages that include both alcoholic (e.g., vodka) and non-alcoholic (e.g., soft drink) components, pre-combined and ready for immediate consumption.
The sample included 491 RTD products sold in three alcohol stores in Sydney, Australia in March–May 2022. Identified warnings were categorised as a mandated warning, a DrinkWise warning (an industry-developed option) or ‘Other’ warning. Analyses were conducted overall and by RTD type.
Almost all (94 per cent) of the sampled RTD products had some form of pregnancy warning, but only 36 per cent displayed the mandatory version. Of the non-mandatory warnings, 74 per cent were DrinkWise warnings (42 per cent of total sample) and 27 per cent were ‘Other’ warnings (15 per cent of total sample). There was no apparent relationship between alcohol content and likelihood of displaying a mandatory warning.
Previous research has shown that alcohol product warnings including both a pictogram and text are more effective than warnings including just one of these two components. This is reflected in the design of the mandatory pregnancy warnings, but is not uniformly characteristic of the non-mandatory variations.
The results of the study suggested that when industry has the choice to choose a warning type, the pictogram-only variation is preferred, which is likely to be attributable to its smaller footprint. It is therefore important to mandate combined formats and monitor their use.
The study concluded that continued monitoring would be required to determine whether the alcohol industry meets its obligations within and beyond the implementation period, adding that effective warning labels were a simple tool to raise awareness of the harms of pre-natal alcohol exposure, determining it critical that the alcohol industry intensifies its efforts to ensure compliance with the mandatory requirement.
