Abstract
South Africa has some of the highest alcohol consumption levels worldwide. It is a major risk factor for health-related harms, which are amplified through the intersection with poverty and informality of settlements in areas such as Khayelitsha, Cape Town. Access to alcohol in low-income townships is facilitated by structural, supply-side factors including low prices of alcohol, high density of liquor outlets, poor regulation of sales and overt advertising. As such, alcohol consumption and problem drinking are higher in these low-income, marginalised areas. This chapter describes (1) existing literature on alcohol and alcohol-related harms in South Africa; (2) alcohol policy in the Western Cape Province, South Africa; (3) geographical characteristics of alcohol outlet exposure of residents in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, South Africa based on a comprehensive alcohol outlet mapping study; and (4) practical applications of these data for alcohol-related harms reduction policy and programming. The findings of this work are potentially useful to policy makers, programme implementers and law enforcement agents to more effectively regulate alcohol availability and reduce alcohol-related harms through evidence-based, spatial interventions.
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Notes
- 1.
1076 outlets were located; however, 31 outlets were excluded due to apparent data collection errors that could not be rectified.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the UK Government’s Department for International Development (DFID), International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada (Grant numbers 107329-001 and 107202-002) and Department of Community Safety, Western Cape Government for their financial support. Thank you to all our collaborators and participants who are involved in the research.
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Bloch, K., Berens, C., Matzopoulos, R. (2021). Geography of Alcohol Exposure: Policy and Programme Implications for Cape Town, South Africa. In: Makanga, P.T. (eds) Practicing Health Geography. Global Perspectives on Health Geography. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63471-1_12
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