Alcohol and Drug Use in Ageing Populations

February 2015

The National Centre for Education and Training on Addiction (NCETA) has produced Grey Matters, a series of seven information sheets to assist specialist and generalist health and welfare workers to better prevent, assess and respond to the needs of older people experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, alcohol and other drug (AOD) related harm.

Longer life expectancy, changing patterns of AOD use and differing expectations of current and future generations of older people will all impact on future AOD service delivery. To-date, comparatively little attention has been directed to the needs of older people and AOD use and, as a result, AOD use patterns and problems among older Australians have been under-researched and are not well understood. NCETA is working collaboratively with the AOD and aged care sectors to address this issue.

Grey Matters can be downloaded from the NCETA website