Campaigns and Treatment on Alcohol Abuse in Kenya

Abstract

Alcoholism is a serious problem in Kenya today and many adults are addicted to alcohol. The harmful use of alcohol causes a large burden concerning diseases, social and economic problems to the society. Mass media campaigns against alcohol act as sources of information to halt alcohol abuse and its potentially harmful effects. In this research, we developed deterministic models for alcohol abuse driven by the light and heavy drinkers taking into consideration the influence of pre exposure to mass media campaigns. Two models were developed, one with perfect pre exposure campaigns where the campaigns were successful and the other with imperfect pre exposure campaigns where the campaigns were not successful. The two models were analyzed through the determination of the model’s steady states and their respective stabilities analysis in terms of the alcohol abuse reproduction numbers R0. The analysis shows that alcohol-free equilibrium (AFE) is locally asymptotically stable if R0 < 1 and unstable if R0 > 1. Numerical simulations were carried out and the sensitivity analysis of the model parameters was done to determine where the campaigns should be targeted for effective control of the abuse. The results from the simulations illustrated that increasing the rate of treatment reduces the number of alcohol addicts in the community. The results also showed that mass media campaign against alcohol consumption reduces alcohol abuse. From the study we conclude that if alcohol treatment is emphasized and mass media campaign regulated then alcohol addiction will be reduced from the community.