Excessive Alcohol Use: A Life-Threatening Disaster - Essay Sample

Introduction

The use of alcohol excessively can result in several harms to the users. Some of the crucial impacts caused by excessive alcohol consumption include alcohol poisoning, heart diseases, cancer, poor birth-outcomes, and motor vehicle injuries. The main concern for this health problem is that it is a potential life losing disaster resulting in a high number of deaths in the United States. Also, there is a considerable expenditure by the government on alcohol abuse-related cases such as meeting the cost of treating individuals for health problems. Hence, this concern remains a menace that burdens the government in terms of expenditure.

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Provide Kansas ratings from the PSR report.

Kansas's state beer excise tax was about $0.18 per gallon in 2014. This data was acquired from the Alcohol Policy information system. Kansas's State distilled spirits excise tax was about $2.50 per gallon in 2014. From the Alcohol policy information System, the state distilled spirits excise taxes were between $1.50 to 14.25 per gallon across the various states that provided data. Kansas's State wine excise tax was about $0.30 per gallon in 2014. According to the Alcohol policy information system the state wine excise taxes ranged between $0.11 and $2.50 across various state that provided data. In 2015, there was no commercial host liability in Kansas. This rating is based on the data provided by ChangeLab Solutions and Alcohol Policy Consultations on the existing state laws for commercial host liability.

Is there room for improvement or not?

Yes, there is room for improvement because the recommendations provided by the Community Preventive Services Task Force are effective. For example, studies have shown that increasing the price of beef by 10% will reduce its consumption by 5%. In addition, doubling alcohol taxes will reduce mortality caused by alcohol-related by 35%. Other studies shown that increasing the price of distilled spirit by 10% reduces its consumption by 8%. Also, Evidence shows that implementing commercial host liability for illegal service or sales of alcohol reduces deaths caused by motor vehicle crashes by 6.4%.

What are the Challenging factors?

The challenging factors are the lack of awareness of safe drinking guidelines, inadequate knowledge concerning early signs of problematic alcohol use, resistance in raising the problem of alcohol with individuals who are not looking for help for alcohol-related issues, and the lack of confidence in the ability to intercede with alcohol issues.

Supporting Factors

The needs to manage and control the impacts of excessive use of alcohol in the United States has led to the creation of evidence-based policies and recommendations. Moreover, this concern over alcohol-related harms has been a current priority that receives the massive support of the stakeholders such as the community preventive services task force and the state-wide coalitions. The community task force in their findings presents possible preventive services and intervention programs that aim to improve public life. Besides, the improvements on this challenge can also bed done through organizing various programs that educate the people on the impacts of alcohol abuse and also the importance of staying healthy. Maximizing on these impacts can help in the reduction of alcohol problems.

Steps to Improve Policies and Practices

Upon the creation of evidence-based policies and the recommendations, the stakeholders should conduct other processes to help them in improving the practices. Among the crucial steps include towards these practices include, focusing on microsystems, understanding and implementing an improvement cycle, and developing goals and action plans. The stakeholders should think of the alcohol-related challenges a system that requires multiple units to address who can offer effective care services to the victims of alcohol abuse. Since this process is a continuous activity, the stakeholders understand and continuously develop methods that will help in addressing and managing the challenges within the alcohol abuse.