News

NCETA in collaboration with LeeJenn Health Consultants and South East Business Networks has recently completed this VicHealth funded project. The project involved a three year multi-site trial of an alcohol harm reduction intervention based on a workplace cultural model developed by Pidd & Roche (2008) and examined whether a comprehensive and tailored workplace intervention could reduce alcohol-related harm. 

This model proposes that a range of workplace factors such as working conditions and employee beliefs and behaviours interact to influence workplace cultures of alcohol use.  Utilising this model, risk and protective factors that are relevant to individual workplaces can be identified and intervention strategies can be tailored to address these factors and meet the specific needs of different workplaces.

The WRAHP intervention was implemented within Victorian manufacturing industry workplaces over three years (2012 to 2015) and comprised five overlapping components:

1. Development and implementation of an overall policy package
2. Implementation of an employee awareness program
3. Supervisor and manager training
4. Establishment of an employee referral pathway
5. Introduction of a wider employee health, wellbeing, and safety program within which the intervention was embedded.

Overall project evaluation findings indicated that tailored interventions (such as WRAHP), that adopt a ‘whole of workplace’ approach, target workplace cultures, and are designed to fit with daily production demands of the workplace, are effective.

Specific details concerning the project findings will be publicly released at a ‘Creating Healthy Workplace Conference’ to be held by VicHealth in March 2016.

The WRAHP intervention builds on NCETA’s extensive program of research and practice concerning workplace alcohol and other drug issues. It forms the basis of future work that NCETA will be undertaking in relation to workplace interventions and policy development and it provides empirical evidence of the effectiveness of the NCETA model.

For information about NCETA’s workplace consultancy, evaluation and training programs contact:

Click here for more information about NCETA’s WorkLife program for workplaces.

Pidd, K., & Roche, A. (2008). “Changing workplace cultures: An integrated model for the prevention and treatment of alcohol-related problems” in D Moore & P Dietze (eds.)Drugs and Public Health: Australian perspectives on policy and practice. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, pp. 49–59.