Pilot Study to Evaluate "Intégrer et Accompagner Les Consommations d'Alcool!" (IACA!)'s Impact and Transferability (VITAE)

In France, 11% of cancers in men and 4.5% of cancers in women are attributed to alcohol consumption. It is the second leading cause of so-called preventable cancers, accounting for 28,000 alcohol-related cancers out of 352,000 new cases of cancer affecting annually adults (over 30 years of age). Overall, alcohol is among the top 3 factors contributing to Disability-Adjusted life year (DALYs) in France in 2017. Some cancer risks can be quantified as early as one drink a day (oesophagus, oral cavity, pharynx and breast in women). However, the risks associated with alcohol consumption remain influenced by the quantities consumed. There is therefore an interest, particularly for consumers of the largest quantities, in reducing the quantities consumed. In Europe, while people who drink more than 60 g/d of alcohol for men and 40 g/d for women are estimated to represent only 16.1% of the population for men and 9.3% for women, they represent 87% and 82% of alcohol-related morbidity and mortality respectively. Subjects with addiction (or substance use disorders) have an increased risk of social harm (1.5 to 3 times that of alcohol users without addiction), a higher mortality (1.4 to 6.5 compared to the general population) with a life expectancy of 9 to 20 years shorter than that of the general population. Moreover, even if the quantities consumed are not a valid individual diagnostic criterion, studies show a strong association between the quantity consumed and the diagnosis of addiction. Finally, some studies suggest that the prevalence of secondary harm from alcohol use follows an exponential curve as a function of alcohol consumption.

Since 2014, in the PACA region, the association Santé! has been developing an intervention to support people suffering from alcohol-related addiction. This intervention, called IACA! (Integrating and supporting alcohol consumption), differs from the support provided during rehabilitation cures and aims to: fight against discrimination and exclusion of people who drink alcohol, re-engage these individuals in the care process (because they have generally left it) by using the appropriate levers, promote well-being, improve quality of life and recovery and support the recovery in control of consumption. Thus, IACA!, through its philosophy and implementation, is based both on the risk reduction approach historically deployed with drug users and on the recovery approach, developed in the field of mental health. The first one-year results of this program were promising since, of 17 people who received the intervention, all had a social or health benefit, 13 of whom were associated with stabilization (n=4), reduction (n=7) or cessation (n=2) of alcohol use.

These promising results must therefore be evaluated on a larger scale before conclusions about its effectiveness can be drawn from a comparative trial. This type of evaluation requires significant human and material resources. It is therefore recommended to first assess in the field: 1) the conditions under which such an intervention is deployed in other centres (adaptations implemented by other centres to deploy IACA! for example, without distorting the intervention), 2) the acceptability and feasibility of the intervention in other centres (are the human and material resources on site sufficient for the successful deployment of the intervention?), 3) the acceptability and feasibility of the large-scale evaluation envisaged.