Alcoholism: Low standing with the public? Attitudes towards spending financial resources on medical care and research on alcoholism

Abstract

Aims: To assess the extent to which the German public supports the allocation of financial resources to the care of people with alcoholism and to research on alcoholism as compared with other conditions. Methods: 5025 interviews were conducted in the scope of a representative survey in Germany during May and June of 2001, using a personal, fully structured interview. Results: Respondents most frequently selected alcoholism as the disease for which medical care expenditures could be spared and cut down and on which research funds should neither be spent in the first place nor should be spent at all. Conclusion: Our study shows that despite the spread of the concept 'alcoholism is an illness', this disease is still treated 'unfavourably' compared to other conditions. Health campaigns that increase the public's awareness that alcoholism is not a personal failure but an illness with severe medical and social consequences may help reduce the public acceptance of structural discrimination.