Women, alcohol, and breast cancer: opportunities for promoting better health and reducing risk

Older women have been relatively neglected in discussions of reducing alcohol-related harm.

Alcohol use and the associated risks and potential harms for those who use it and others are among the most challenging and controversial issues in health care. An increasing array of harms associated with the consumption of alcohol, even at lower levels of use, have been identified by researchers. This is not a welcome message for many.

However, one area that has received relatively little attention in health promotion and clinical settings is the causal or contributory role of alcohol in cancer. In this issue of the MJA, Grigg and colleagues report their investigation of a novel brief animation-based intervention for improving awareness of the alcohol–breast cancer risk connection in a double-blinded, randomised controlled trial that included 557 women over 40 years of age who attended routine breast screening in Melbourne...