This rapid review of the evidence on poverty and alcohol misuse was commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation as part of their programme to develop Anti-Poverty Strategies for the UK. The purpose of the rapid review is to provide an evidence base that the Joseph Rowntree Foundation can use in developing their Anti-Poverty Strategies, enabling them to decide how to address alcohol misuse within the Strategies.

The findings of the rapid review are presented across five chapters.
• Chapter 1 presents an introduction to the issues around alcohol consumption, summarising existing knowledge on the risks and benefits of alcohol consumption to health, to others and related issues of stigma and marginalisation. It also identifies the definitions used in this report for problem alcohol use and presents prevalence figures on problem alcohol use in the UK.
• Chapter 2 provides a summary of the methods used to collate the evidence used in the rapid review. More detail on the methods is also provided in Appendix 1.
• Chapter 3 presents the findings from a review of the correlations between poverty and problem alcohol use. This chapter also summarises the research evidence for the mechanisms and pathways that may link poverty and problem alcohol use.
• Chapter 4 presents a summary of the evidence on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness for policies and interventions targeting problem alcohol use.
• Chapter 5 brings together and discusses the findings from the two review elements and attempts to draw out implications for research and policy.