December 2024 project update

SPACES December 2024 Newsletter

Storytelling Promoting Alcohol Change, Empowerment & Sharing (SPACES): supporting mid-life women who would like to reduce their alcohol consumption.

Welcome to the first issue of the SPACES newsletter! 

Every few months we will be sharing updates about progress with this project so far and new information about drinking in midlife. 

What have we done so far?

The SPACES project has started well, and we’ve completed data collection for the first phase of the research.  We are immensely grateful to all the wonderful participants who took part in this year’s workshops.  They shared their views on what influences mid-life women’s drinking and what they think about some of the tools and techniques that help people cut back on their alcohol consumption.  We’ll be using these findings to help shape what happens in 2025!

What are we doing in 2025?

January:  we’ll be starting off with a free online seminar on Wednesday 22 January (11am to 12 noon).  Join us and find out more about some of the current issues around midlife women’s drinking and what we have found out so far!  To book your place, please click here. 

February/March:  we’ll be conducting more workshops and inviting people to help us develop stories that connect with mid-life women who want to cut down their alcohol consumption. Click here to find out more and let us know if you’re interested in taking part in workshops in spring 2025.

Research highlight: 

Understanding Alcohol Consumption After a Breast Cancer Diagnosis.

A recent study by researchers at Oxford Brookes University, funded by an Oxford Brookes University Research Excellence Award, has revealed important new findings about alcohol consumption patterns among breast cancer survivors.

Conducted with 140 participants, the study found that three-quarters of those who drank alcohol were drinking at low-risk levels.  However, 1 in 4 were drinking at levels that indicated they could be at risk of further health harms.

Of those who were drinking alcohol 17% expressed a strong desire to change their drinking habits. Habitual drinking behaviours, influenced by social norms and conflicting information received about drinking after a diagnosis of breast cancer, were identified as major barriers to change.

The project’s principal investigator, Professor Eila Watson, Professor of Supportive Cancer Care, and Deputy Director (interim) of OxINAHR commented on the project, “The findings clearly indicate the importance of interventions to help women with breast cancer make informed choices about alcohol consumption and to support those who wish to reduce their intake to do so”.  You can read the whole study here.

Why do we need to be concerned about alcohol consumption?

Over the last few years new evidence about alcohol-related harm has come to light. Apart from being linked to cancer, cardiovascular, and liver diseases, alcohol consumption is also thought to have impacts on menopausal symptoms, mental health, mood, and many other aspects of health and wellbeing.  The latest evidence can be found in Alcohol Change UK’s fact sheets and The Institute of Alcohol Studies videos. Everyone’s choices about why they may or may not drink alcohol are different though, and we all need to respect that. 

 Who we are

The SPACES project team is a collaboration between researchers at Oxford Brookes University and Liverpool John Moores University.  Each SPACES newsletter will be profiling one of the researchers on the team.  In this issue, we’re introducing Dr Emma Davies, who leads the SPACES team and has been working as an alcohol researcher for 15 years.

“I started out on my journey into alcohol research because I was fascinated to understand more about how we perceive risks and make judgements about what to do when it comes to our health. I have recently been researching how we experience intoxication, the role of regret in drinking, and trying to understand more about the complex interaction between alcohol and wellbeing. We know a lot more these days about alcohol-related harms than we used to, but we are not great at communicating this information in an accessible way. I think it is really important that everyone has access to accurate information, at the right time, and the right support, whether they want to cut down, moderate or stop drinking. As a mid-life woman myself, I feel passionate about the SPACES project, and I hope we can start to open up authentic and respectful conversations about alcohol”.

Who are we working with?

The SPACES is funded by The Medical Research Council who work to improve the health of people in the UK.  We’re also extremely fortunate to be working in partnership with Alcohol Change UK, Club Soda, Soberistas, the Institute of Alcohol Studies, and other organisations.

In the next issue

The next newsletter will be produced in March 2025, and we’ll be updating you with findings from this year’s research, and progress and plans for the rest of 2025.  If you have any content you would like to suggest for the next issue, email spacesproject@brookes.ac.uk by Friday 14th March 2025.