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. 2025 Aug 13.
doi: 10.1007/s11673-025-10443-6. Online ahead of print.

Othering, Stigma, and Normalization: A Key Informant Interview Study on Ethical Issues in Alcohol Policy in Australia

Mary Jean Walker  1
Affiliations

Othering, Stigma, and Normalization: A Key Informant Interview Study on Ethical Issues in Alcohol Policy in Australia

Mary Jean Walker. J Bioeth Inq. .

Abstract

Alcohol use causes significant harms and is extensively regulated by governments, but alcohol-related questions are under-explored in public health ethics. To inform future work in this area, I conducted interviews with key informants from alcohol research and policy work in Australia. Thematic analysis of interviews identified a range of ethical issues that can be categorized under six themes: ethical issues in alcohol research; ethical issues raised by judgements about alcohol use; ethical issues raised by alcohol policies; ethical issues in policy processes; ethical questions about policy aims; and ethical issues in how alcohol problems are defined. The study provides direction for future research on problems that are underexplored in the ethics literature. These include problems arising from the influence of industry in alcohol research and policy, the question of how to develop research and policy without generating stigma, and social justice issues connected to alcohol-related stereotypes and judgements.

Keywords: Alcohol; Drinking; Moralization; Normalization; Othering; Policy inequality; Policy targeting; Stigma.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics Approval: La Trobe University Human Research Ethics Committee HEC21242. Consent: All informants provided signed consent for interview extracts to be included in publications. The article contains no details, images, or videos related to an individual person. Authorship: MJW is responsible for conceptualization, methodology, analysis, writing, review and editing, and funding acquisition. Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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