Beer Marketer's Insights - Survey Shows Sharp Uptick in Awareness of Cancer Link After Surgeon Genl's Advisory

Between last September and early this year, the proportion of adults who said that regular drinking increases the "chances of later developing cancer" jumped from 40% to 56%, according to survey results from the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center. The second survey was fielded from Jan 30-Feb 10 of this year, "less than a month after US Surgeon General [at the time] Dr Vivek Murthy's advisory on alcohol and cancer risk," the school wrote. Despite the change in awareness, less than half of respondents said that they had "read or heard about" at least one recent report on alcohol and health. And among those who had, just over 60% said the report "had no effect" on their willingness "to accept an alcoholic drink if one is offered on a social occasion." The flip side of that, of course, is that 29% said they'd be "less likely" to accept a drink. So whether they followed all the details, widespread reporting on potential negative health impacts of drinking seem to be breaking through. Indeed, among the quarter or so of 1,700 total respondents who had heard about just 1 recent report, 47% of them remembered the report saying that moderate drinking "has harmful health effects." Another quarter thought the report noted both negatives and positives, while 20% weren't sure.Respondents were far more likely to report awareness of the Surgeon Genl's Advisory than other recent reports. Among those who had heard about at least one report, 46% said they'd heard about the SGA and 44% weren't sure which report they heard about. Additionally, 11% said they had heard about the late 2024 report by the National Academies (NASEM) designed to inform the next edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.Respondents could check multiple boxes and slightly smaller groups of folks reported hearing about reports we're unaware of: one from "The International Beverage Association" and one from "a group other than NASEM asked by Congress to summarize what science knows about alcohol consumption and health." We couldn't find an actual IBA, though the acronym is occasionally used to describe an international trade association for non-alcoholic beverage groups. And of course, Congress did not instruct any other group than NASEM to study alcohol and health; ICCPUD took that task up on its own. Either way, public awareness captured by this survey seems to track the wide divide between sparse reporting about NASEM and ICCPUD and the veritable avalanche of articles about the SGA.

Survey Shows Sharp Uptick in Awareness of Cancer Link After Surgeon Genl's Advisory

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