ALCOHOL MISUSE AND THE PREDISPOSING ENVIRONMENT

In recent years, the aetiology of alcohol misuse has come to be concep tualised in terms of risk factor models. Risk can emanate from a numbe r of sources ranging from the genetic to the sociostructural. This cha pter reviews the major environmental risk factors under two broad head ings - those that affect the availability of the agent and those that affect the vulnerability of the host. The former include a variety of economic, social and physical factors such as price, advertising and l icensing laws. The latter include broad socioeconomic and sociocultura l factors, as well as interpersonal influences such as family, peers, employment and stress. Practitioners (as distinct from policy-makers) concerned with prevention and treatment of alcohol misuse can most eff ectively intervene at the interpersonal level, and the paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for clinical practice of the re search reviewed in this domain.