Franca Beccaria

Independent Researcher

In Piedmont (northwestern Italy), as in the rest of the Western world, only a small percentage of the estimated problem gamblers (10–20%) turn to a treatment service to overcome their addiction issues. The study sought to gain a better understanding of the cultural factors that stand in the way of seeking help, thorough qualitative in-depth individ...

To date, studies of peer-led online harm reduction communities have focused on web forums, arguing that online spaces are strategic settings for both obtaining up to date information on substances and patterns of drug use and implementing new forms of outreach on the web. The present study analyzes the content and dynamics of a spontaneous users’ g...

From comparisons of World Health Organization statistics, it is clear that people in lower-income countries experience more harms per litre of alcohol and different types of harms compared to those from higher-income countries. Yet studies in higher-income countries dominate research on policies to prevent alcohol problems. The paper reports on res...

Though influenced by globalization, practices, meanings and values of alcohol consumption in Italy still render it part of the traditional Mediterranean drinking culture (Allamani & Beccaria, 2007; Beccaria, 2010c, 2016; Beccaria & Rolando, 2016). Implicitly this concept has a macro-sociological focus, as the notion of drinking culture typically re...

This research project is aimed at identifying risk and protective factors of social withdrawal, by studying some areas of young people's psychological wellbeing. The study took place in a medium-sized town in the north-west of Italy. A total of 1,102 students participated in the study. An online survey was sent to all the students attending the sec...

Alcohol control strategies vary between countries and reflect differences in drinking cultures. This study explored how perceived effectiveness of alcohol control strategies varies according to individual characteristics and country of residence. A cross-sectional online survey was completed by 1910 university students in Denmark, England, Germany,...

Drinking stories are a narrative genre that revolves around drinking and its functions. While drinking stories commonly refer to large amounts of alcohol, young people, transgressive meanings, and interactional goals, the article focuses on the practice of fine drinking, a type of drinking that is characterized by quality, service, and atmosphere....

Over the last 30 years, substantive progress has been made in terms of polices for and responses to alcohol and other drug-related problems in many EU Member States. Despite being one of the six founding member states of the European Communities, Italy is one of those countries that have not embraced a similar progressive approach, due to what we c...

Beccaria F., Rolando S., Petrilli E., Arcieri L. (2022). Tactics of Altered Consumption: Young People’s Drinking Choices in the Italian Movida. Italian Sociological Review, 12 (1): 65-86. Urban nightlife is often depicted as a homogeneous category dominated by the entertainment industry and characterised by at risk drinking practices. Taking on a...

Purpose Spanning almost 30 years, Italy’s experience with take-home-naloxone (THN) provides an interesting case study on the international scene because of its specific history, regulation and trends in overdose (OD) rates. Accordingly, this study aims to contribute to the evidence base for THN and its delivery in a different setting. Design/metho...

Focus group data from 92 youths from Italy and the U.S.A. indicate that Italians and Americans differ in perceived threshold of acceptability of drinking to excess. Youth from the U.S.A. were more accepting of intoxication than Italian youth, reflecting features of each respective dominant drinking culture. Alcohol gender double standards existed i...

Project: Health & Greenspace APN Call 2 Phase 2. Lead Partner The city of Budapest 12th District. https://urbact.eu/healthgreenspace https://urbact.eu/impacts-urban-green-spaces-social-and-individual-wellbeing-thematic-report

Within the past several years, a considerable body of research on adherence to diabetes regimen has emerged in public health. However, the focus of the vast majority of these studies has been on the individual traits and attitudes affecting adherence. Still little is known on the role of the social and physical context in supporting or hindering di...

Wine consumption is affected by intertwined needs generated by factors such as production and marketing methods, as well as by the individual's desire for social differentiation in a democratised mass drinking culture. Our study sought to determine whether consumption patterns have changed in the Italian province of Trentino and how such changes ma...

Health equity in All Policies requires decision makers to face the health impact of their decisions and its distribution among different population groups. Since the evidence policy gap often prevents them from using the evidence provided by experts, appropriate mechanisms of governance are needed to overcome this barrier. In Turin (Italy, pop. 900...

Worldwide, there are a few examples of laws seeking to reduce the availability of Electronic Gambling Machines, one being a regional law introduced in Piedmont in 2018 that limited the times and places where gambling is allowed, causing an overall decrease in gambling frequency and expenditure and a heated public debate. This study investigates gam...

Background: A positive transition to adulthood entails developing the individual and social skills needed to cope with critical situations. The “My Health Diary” program was designed as a school-based and teacher-led intervention focusing on the active engagement of 12- to 13-year-old pre-adolescents. The study analyzes the role of several primary...

The aim of this paper is to assess to what extent prohibitive drug policies hamper the management of drug problems from the perspective of young people who have experience with the criminal justice systems (CJS). Qualitative, in-depth interviews were carried out in six European countries (Austria, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Poland, and the UK) follow...

Parole chiave: tecnologie, rischi, opportunità RIASSUNTO L'articolo presenta i risultati della valutazione del progetto di prevenzione della dipendenza da Internet: "Prox Experience Social & Technology", avviato nel 2015 dal Dipartimento delle Dipendenze Patologiche della Città di Torino. L'obiettivo della valutazione era identificare i messaggi re...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate motives and modalities of psychedelic substance use in the psychonaut community that is hosted on the Reddit platform (r/psychonaut). Psychonauts are sometimes described as responsible drug users. Elements of responsible use include sharing stories, advice and experiences, reagent testing substanc...

Based on research undertaken as part of the EU funded EPPIC project, this paper aims to update and elaborate on the relationship between drug use and offending behaviours by exploring variations within a cross-national sample of drug-experienced young people in touch with criminal justice systems. Adopting a trajectory-based approach, interviews we...

The study adopts a qualitative comparative approach to better understand how different dimensions affect social norms regulating alcohol consumption. Female and male attitudes towards drunkenness were analysed on the basis of data from 27 focus groups involving a total of 166 participants from Italy, Finland and Sweden, grouped by age cohort (17–20...

The Italian gambling market has been growing since the 1990s, becoming one of the world’s largest markets. However, since 2004, a number of municipalities have taken measures to limit the negative outcomes of gambling by introducing local regulations, especially ‘timing’ and ‘zoning’ measures aimed at reducing the number of Electronic Gambling Mach...

Aims: To compare the drinking cultures of youth in the USA and in Italy. Method: Sequential explanatory mixed method design. Phase 1: Multigroup latent class analysis was used to identify subgroups of drinkers from samples of 424 (61.3% female) Italian and 323 American college students (57.3% female). Phase 2: Focus group interviews with 41 Ital...

Purpose Drug-related web forums have been argued to be an effective way to investigate the latest generation of drug users. The purpose of this paper is to explore discussions about drugs and new psychoactive substances (NPS) on an Italian psychonauts’ online community in order to gain a better understanding of the psychonauts’ profiles by scrutini...

The percentage of at risk and problem gamblers is stable, but at the individual level patterns of behaviour change (Hodgins, 2001; Winters et al., 2005; Slutske, 2006). Problem gambling is not permanent and it does not concern specific «types» of (vulnerable) people. Non- linear patterns are widespread. Gambling carriers imply the interplay of cult...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between drug use and offending by using the concept of critical moments as an analytical tool. Design/methodology/approach In total, 41 semi-structured individual interviews with young people (15–25 years) using drugs and in touch with the criminal justice system (CJS) were conducted...

Diario della Salute [My Health Diary] is a school-based program designed to enhance the subjective well-being and health of 12- to 13-year-old students. We hypothesized that providing students with the social and emotional skills to fulfill their potential and deal with common developmental tasks of adolescence (e.g., onset of puberty, identity dev...

Background: To compare patterns of alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harm from a survey of university students sampled from universities in Denmark, England, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Switzerland. Methods: A total of 2191 university students (70% female, 90% white ethnic group, age range 18-25) completed the survey. Participants completed...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse dynamics amongst members to better understand in what terms and to what extent marketplace forums can be seen as new forms of harm reduction. Design/methodology/approach This is a qualitative analysis focused on conversations about psychoactive substances on the forum community of AlphaBay Market. A...

The study examines Italian young people’s opinions and attitudes towards alcohol policies in order to shed light on the potential challenges to the introduction of more restrictive policies. A mixed methods research design was employed. A CAWI survey and online forum targeted 15–25 year olds, resulting in 1,816 valid responses to the online questio...

With its geographical differences, Italy provides an interesting case study for analysing the cultural and contextual origin of gambling related problems. By investigating gambling careers, the study sought to scrutinize the interplay between the personal and environmental factors – including social and cultural aspects – that influence changes in...

With its geographical differences, Italy provides an interesting case study for analysing the cultural and contextual origin of gambling-related problems. By investigating gambling careers, the study sought to scrutinize the interplay between the personal and environmental factors – including social and cultural aspects – that influence changes in...

Hikikomori in Italy is a recent and fast growing phenomenon. Scholars estimate from 60.000 to 100.000 cases (Spiniello et al. 2015) Partial social withdrawal implies restricted social life and school refusal. It received a lot of attention from the media, but few studies are dedicated to it. We carried out a population study, aimed at investigatin...

L'articolo rappresenta un estratto del più ampio rapporto 2016 “Prevenire le morti per overdose da oppiacei – Il modello italiano di distribuzione del naloxone”. Contrariamente a quanto emerge dalla letteratura internazionale (EMCDDA, 2016), a cui sono mancate le necessarie fonti e che colloca le prime esperienze di THN nel 1996, anno in cui il nal...

Aims: The article presents an analysis of sources of information employed in mainstream print media reporting on addiction problems in Finland, Italy and Poland in the 1990s and 2000s. Method: A quantitative content analysis of frequency of different sources employed in articles in daily newspapers from Finland (N = 258), Italy (N = 296), and Po...

Since the 1990s, young people’s drinking has been a matter of public concern, attracting considerable media attention that has contributed to spreading the alarm. The purpose of this article is to dispel some stereotypes about youth drinking in Italy, by putting it in an international perspective and explaining some of the key factors that have con...

Advertisements not only mirror ideals of masculinity and femininity that prevail in a specific place and time, but also contribute to influencing them. This article analyses alcohol-related advertisements published in women’s magazines from 1967 to 2008 in Italy. The main aim is to understand cultural processes that underlie gender differences in d...

Providing one set of policy measures for all countries as if they were a single, homogeneous entity does not appear to be evidence-based, according to recent research on the effectiveness of alcoholic beverage control policies. Contextual and cultural determinants-social, economic, demographic, cultural and political-appear to be major factors of i...

In this article we analyze how Finnish, Italian and Swedish men and women are doing, modifying and unlinking gender in relation to different drinking places and situations. In the study, Finland and Sweden represent the Nordic intoxication-oriented drinking cultures, whereas Italy, in turn, represents the Mediterranean meal drinking cultures. The d...

Background and aims: This is the first study to examine the effect of alcohol marketing exposure on adolescents' drinking in a cross-national context. The aim was to examine reciprocal processes between exposure to a wide range of alcohol marketing types and adolescent drinking, controlled for non-alcohol branded media exposure. Design: Prospect...

Objectives. Extending individual planning of health behaviour change to the level of the dyad, dyadic planning refers to a target person and a planning partner jointly planning the target person’s health behaviour change. To date, predictors of dyadic planning have not been systematically investigated. Integrating cognitive predictors of individual...

Allamani, A., & Beccaria, F. (2016). Editorial: Discussing conflicts of interest during a Kettil Bruun Society symposium, June 2014, Turin (Italy). The International Journal Of Alcohol And Drug Research, 5(1), 1-3. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.7895/ijadr.v5i1.226Human beings have always sought after truth and made efforts to define and measure objects...

Allamani, A., & Beccaria, F. (2016). Editorial: Discussing conflicts of interest during a Kettil Bruun Society symposium, June 2014, Turin (Italy). The International Journal Of Alcohol And Drug Research, 5(1), 1-3. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.7895/ijadr.v5i1.226Human beings have always sought after truth and made efforts to define and measure objects...

Allamani, A., & Beccaria, F. (2016). Editorial: Discussing conflicts of interest during a Kettil Bruun Society symposium, June 2014, Turin (Italy). The International Journal Of Alcohol And Drug Research, 5(1), 1-3. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.7895/ijadr.v5i1.226Human beings have always sought after truth and made efforts to define and measure objects...

Introduction: The paper complements an epidemiological analysis of secondary data that compared levels of consumption, alcohol-related mortality and morbidity in territories in Piedmont (N-W Italy), characterized by a different involvement with wine culture, and which showed lower alcohol-related risks in areas of production. Aims: The main aim is...

Background: Gender differences strongly affect heroin addiction, from risk factors to patterns of consumption, access to treatments, and outcomes. Objectives: To investigate gender differences in the VEdeTTE cohort of heroin addicts. Methods: VEdeTTE is a cohort of 10,454 heroin users enrolled between 1998 and 2001 in 115 public drug treatment...

Petrilli, E., & Beccaria, F. (2015). The Italian “alcohol question” from 1860 to 1930: Two opposing scientific interpretations. The International Journal Of Alcohol And Drug Research, 4(1), 37-43. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.7895/ijadr.v4i1.193Background: In recent years, English-speaking and Northern European alcohol researchers have turned a histori...

Female alcohol consumption has long been judged more harshly than male behaviour of the same nature. Scholars have shown that traditional mass media contribute to strengthening these stereotypes. The hypothesis of the present study is that new media, especially Web 2.0 environments, provide room for rewriting gender roles in relation to alcohol. To...

During the 1970s, the total alcohol consumption model (TCM) and the public health approach it inspired shifted the focus of control policies from individuals to the entire population. From the late 1990s, sociological studies challenged TCM and indicated the advantages of the harm-reduction approach, which distinguishes between low- and high-risk p...

The article reviews portrayals of "the addict" in press items from Italy, Finland, Poland, and The Netherlands. The dataset includes over 1,327 items from four national newspapers published in 1991, 1998, 2011. The portrayals varied according to country, period, and type of addiction problem. Results can be read as four cases where different concep...

The use of a standard definition of ‘binge drinking’ can potentially offer the advantage of ‘objectifying’ the concept of excessive drinking. Nevertheless, the term has become somewhat confusing, as it is often used as a synonym of drunkenness, making cross-cultural comparison difficult. The present study investigates the meaning Italian young peop...

Concepts play a central part in the formulation of problems and proposed solutions to the use of substances. This article reports the initial results from a cross European historical study, carried out to a common methodology, of the language of addiction and policy responses in two key periods, 1860–1930 and the 1950s and 1960s. It concludes that...

Background: Political concern with alcohol as a social problem arose in Italy only at the end of last century, when consumption and the death rate from alcohol-related causes had both been trending down for decades. The main aim of this case study is to investigate - applying Wiener's theoretical framework - the role of different stakeholders in t...

Aims: This study aims to investigate the views of adults towards youth drinking, and what they think about alcohol-related parenting styles, as these attitudes are among the factors most affecting adolescents’ alcohol use and misuse. Methods: Ten focus groups involving 30 parents and 32 teachers were organized in two towns located in Northern (Tori...

The study applies the concept of boundary work, as developed by Lamont and Molnár to analyze how young people perceive adult drinking. It is based on eight focus groups involving young people aged 17 to 24 years conducted in Torino (IT) and Helsinki (FI). The study contributes to understand why different orientations towards heavy drinking persist...

Aims: The study compares young adults’ cultural understandings of intimate partner violence (IPV) and its connections with alcohol use and gender roles. Data and analyses: Comparative focus group interview data were collected in seven countries (Argentina, Finland, Italy, Nigeria, Uganda, Uruguay, Sri Lanka). Similar lists of codes and coding proce...

Aims: This study aims to plug the gap about how young people understand their direct and indirect experience with alcohol by investigating the prevalent images of alcohol among 15-year-olds. The study also aims to clarify the position of young Italians towards traditional Italian drinking culture. Methods: Twenty-two focus groups were organized in...

The study applies the concept of boundary work, as developed by Lamont and Molnár to analyze how young people perceive adult drinking. It is based on eight focus groups involving young people aged 17 to 24 years conducted in Torino (IT) and Helsinki (FI). The study contributes to understand why different orientations towards heavy drinking persist...

This article considers the ways in which Italian scholars conceptualized alcohol and drug addiction between 1860 and 1930. Based on the analysis of more than 40 books and 5 scientific journals (112 issues), it is argued that in the period 1860-1930, scholars were more interested in alcohol than any other substance. Indeed “alcoholism’ was the term...

This article, part of a comparative research project (WP2) funded by FP7 ALICE RAP, is based upon a review of literature and documents and 18 individual interviews with Italian national stakeholders (SHs) conducted in 2012. The goal was to identify the main shifts in opioid "substitution drug" treatment policies and understand the role played by di...

The study aims to investigate the relationship between alcohol consumption and quality of life (QoL) on a representative sample of adults aged 25-34 living in France, Italy, and the Netherlands (4,841 subjects). The data was collected in 2008 using telephone interviews and analyzed with cluster analysis using Ward's method. Results show that the im...

Aims: The aim of this qualitative research is to show how the alcohol socialization process - i.e. the ways children and young people get acquainted with alcohol - can generate very diverse experiences and meanings in different cultural contexts. Method: A total of 16 focus groups were conducted in Italy and Finland, divided by age (4 groups), gen...