title: Alcohol warning label perceptions: Emerging evidence for alcohol policy.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Patterns of alcohol and cigarette use and abuse can be considered parallels due to their similar social, biological and epidemiological implications. Therefore, the cross-fertilization of policy research, including health warnings evidence, is justified. The objective of this study was to apply the lessons learned from the tobacco health warnings and plain packaging literature to an alcohol packaging study and test whether labelling alters consumer perceptions.
  
  
  METHODS
  Ninety-two adults were exposed to four labelling conditions of bottles for a famous brand of each of wine, beer and hard liquor. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four labelling conditions: standard, text warning, text and image warning, or text and image warning on a plain bottle. Participants then expressed their product-based (i.e., evaluation of the products) and consumer-based (i.e., evaluation of potential consumers of the products) perceptions in relation to each label condition and were asked to recognize the correct health warning.
  
  
  RESULTS
  As expected, participants perceived bottles with warnings less positively as compared to standard bottles in terms of product-based and consumer-based perceptions: plain bottles showed the most consistent statistically significant results, followed by text and image warnings, and then text warnings in pair-wise comparisons with the standard bottles. Some support for the impact of plain packaging on warning recognition was also found.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Unlike previous studies, this study reveals that health warnings, if similar to those on cigarette packs, can change consumer-based and product-based perceptions of alcohol products. The study reveals the importance of serious consideration of stringent alcohol warning policy research.
authors.affiliation: Saint Mary's University. alhamdani.mohammed@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Mohammed
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Al-hamdani
authors.forename: Steven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Smith
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000434:Alcoholic Beverages / Q000009:adverse effects; D002170:Canada; D005260:Female; D005515:Food Labeling / Q000379:methods*; D006291:Health Policy; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010465:Perception; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Alcohol; alcohol policy; drug labelling; public policy