Absence makes the will grow stronger? Boosting abstinence campaigns to reduce alcohol and meat consumption to improve public health

Excessive consumption of alcohol and meat are two key challenges impacting population health. Both are associated with increased risk of a range of non-communicable diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, stroke and diabetes. Alcohol consumption is estimated to be the cause of 4.5% of deaths globally, while one portion of red processed meat a day has been estimated to increase the risk of premature death by 20%.

Addressing these health challenges is complex with action required at multiple levels including, targeting individual consumption habits. Whilst achieving sustained behaviour change can be difficult, campaigns like Dry January and Veganuary, where people pledge to abstain from alcohol or meat for one month, have been shown to lead to long-term reductions in consumption. Additionally, participants report substantial health and general wellbeing benefits and with an estimated 4 million people attempting the campaigns, they’re becoming increasingly popular.

My PhD aims to examine how these campaigns lead to behaviour change by focusing on how changes in some known cognitive and affective drivers of behaviour (such as reward processes, self-control, self-efficacy, attitudes, motivation and identity) are associated with short- and long-term reductions in alcohol and meat consumption. We aim to then maximise the campaign’s impact by targeting the factors predictive of behaviour change in an intervention study.

In this talk I will present data from a pilot study that surveyed Veganuary 2023 participants (n=46) at baseline (December) and follow-up (February), measuring changes in meat consumption and some of the cognitive and affective measures mentioned above.