WHO Collaborating Centre for Alcohol Policy and Public Health Research

Designated in March 2025, the mission of this collaborating centre at the Institute for Social Marketing and Health, is to support WHO’s work in advancing evidence-based strategies to reduce alcohol consumption and related harms worldwide, with a strong focus on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

We play a crucial role in contributing to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) global effort to tackle such harms, including by generating and sharing robust evidence to inform, develop, and evaluate effective alcohol policies.

What we do

Our planned work as a Collaborating Centre is focused on four key areas:

1. Alcohol licensing systems

Alcohol licensing systems are used to regulate who can sell alcohol, where, when and to whom, because greater availability of alcohol is strongly linked to higher rates of harm from alcohol consumption. In many countries, alcohol can only be sold legally from premises that are granted a licence or permit from the state. In collaboration with WHO, our work includes examination of alcohol licensing systems in LMICs, informed by local researchers and partners, to build understanding of current systems, how they operate, and how effective they are likely to be in reducing alcohol harms. By considering local contexts as well as wider evidence, we aim to support WHO’s technical assistance to countries on the design and implementation of availability and licensing policies that are effective in reducing harm from alcohol consumption in line with the WHO Global Alcohol Action Plan.

2. Restricting Alcohol Marketing

Alcohol marketing (including advertising, sponsorship, and all other forms of brand promotion) drives higher levels of consumption by making alcohol seem more normal and desirable, creating positive feelings about drinking, targeting specific groups to increase the amount of alcohol they purchase, and encouraging more regular consumption or consumption of larger volumes of alcohol. Our work as a WHO Collaborating Centre contributes to an understanding of the relative strengths of different approaches to and systems for regulating alcohol marketing. The findings of the work will inform WHO’s guidance on national and international policymaking to reduce exposure to alcohol marketing and protect groups most vulnerable to alcohol-related harm.

3. Addressing Unrecorded Alcohol

Unrecorded alcohol is alcohol that isn’t monitored or regulated by the government. This includes alcoholic drinks that are made at home or smuggled, other alcoholic beverages sold without a proper licence, and products consumed in place of alcoholic beverages, but which are not meant for drinking such as perfumes or industrial alcohol. These drinks can pose significant public health risks because they may contain harmful ingredients or lack quality control, and they contribute to overall alcohol consumption. They may also partially undermine efforts to reduce harm from alcohol arising from regulation of the legal alcohol market.

Our work focuses on supporting WHO’s guidance to countries on developing current and future policies to address unrecorded alcohol, by considering both community and broader systemic impacts, particularly in LMICs where this issue is most prevalent, because unrecorded alcohol makes up a bigger proportion of the alcohol market.

4. Knowledge Sharing and Capacity Building

Through initiatives like WHO’s Less Alcohol webinar series, we contribute to global discussions on alcohol policy. These webinars provide policymakers, researchers, and public health professionals with cutting-edge insights on emerging alcohol policy issues.

Our approach

Our work is delivered by experts in public health, alcohol policy, and social marketing in the Institute for Social Marketing and Health (ISMH) at the University of Stirling, with input from public and policy partners. Together with WHO, we align our research and activities with global strategies to prevent and reduce alcohol-related harm.

How we're funded

The work of the collaborating centre is enabled by core funding from the University of Stirling which supports the salary costs of our Co-Directors Dr Robyn Burton and Professor Niamh Fitzgerald. Other ISMH, University of Stirling and external colleagues contribute to collaborating centre projects on an in-kind basis in line with their expertise. We seek grant funding from public sector funders to further develop related work.