School of Population Health, and Centre for Addiction Research, University of Auckland, Private 92019, Auckland 1142, Aotearoa New Zealand.
School of Population Health, and Centre for Addiction Research, University of Auckland, Private 92019, Auckland 1142, Aotearoa New Zealand.
Int J Drug Policy. 2023 Jul;117:104056. doi: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2023.104056. Epub 2023 May 13.
Use of the term 'alcohol industry' plays an important role in discussions of alcohol and public health. In this paper, we examine how the term is currently used and explore the merits of alternative conceptualisations.
We start by examining current ways of referring to 'alcohol industry' in public health and then explore the potential for organisational theory, political science, and sociology to provide alcohol research with more inclusive and nuanced conceptualizations.
We identify, and critique, three conceptualisations based on purely economic understandings of industry: literal, market, and supply-chain understandings. We then examine three alternative conceptualizations based on systemic understandings of industry: organizational, social-network, and common-interest understandings. In examining these alternatives, we also identify the extent to which they open up new ways of approaching the levels at which industry influence is understood to operate in alcohol and public health research and policy.
Each of the six understandings of 'industry' can play a role in research but their utility depends on the question being asked and the breadth and depth of the analysis being undertaken. However, for those intending to engage with a broader disciplinary base, approaches grounded in the systemic understandings of 'industry' are better positioned to study the complex nexus of relationships that contribute to alcohol industry influence.
“酒精行业”一词在酒精与公共卫生的讨论中起着重要作用。本文旨在探讨该术语的当前用法，并探索替代概念化的优点。
我们首先研究了公共卫生领域中当前引用“酒精行业”的方式，然后探讨了组织理论、政治学和社会学为酒精研究提供更具包容性和细微差别的概念化的可能性。
我们确定并批评了三种基于纯粹经济行业理解的概念化：字面理解、市场理解和供应链理解。然后，我们考察了基于系统行业理解的三种替代概念化：组织理解、社会网络理解和共同利益理解。在考察这些替代方案时，我们还确定了它们在多大程度上为理解行业影响在酒精和公共卫生研究和政策中的运作水平提供了新的方法。
“行业”的六种理解中的每一种都可以在研究中发挥作用，但它们的效用取决于所提出的问题以及正在进行的分析的广度和深度。然而，对于那些打算与更广泛的学科基础接触的人来说，基于系统行业理解的方法更适合研究导致酒精行业影响的复杂关系网络。
