A quarter of Kiwis turn up to hospital emergency departments with injuries that were caused while drinking, a new study has revealed.
One of the collaborators for the study, Auckland University Professor Bridget Kool, spoke on TVNZ 1's Breakfast today to discuss what the findings mean for New Zealand's binge-drinking culture.
The study looks at different domains: regulations, alcohol-related regulations, advertising, the training of bar staff and vehicle-related regulations such as breath testing.
Professor Kool said of the 28 countries studied, Sweden "probably has the most robust policies" as only 15 per cent of people had consumed alcohol in the six hours before turning up in the emergency department with injuries.
In comparison, New Zealand came in at number two on the list at 25 per cent, down from 45 per cent in 2000.
Professor Kool says the number is "really encouraging".
"Where there had been most change had been, in actual fact, been people presenting with an injury had been as a result of a traffic-related event tells us that some of those messages around drink-driving are getting through which is really encouraging."
She says New Zealand needs to take a tougher stance on alcohol regulation.
"I think the usefulness of a study like this is there hasn't been a lot of research done on policy, so now that we have this indice that's been developed, we can look at if we have areas that we do need to increase our policies, and some that is around liquor outlet densities.
"You know, our most disadvantaged areas have the highest concentration of liquor outlets which is completely unacceptable."
Another big issue, Professor Kool says, is the "social marketing into our younger, earlier drinkers".
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