Vocht, F., McQuire, C., Brennan, A. orcid.org/0000-0002-1025-312X et al. (13 more authors) (2020) Evaluating the causal impact of individual alcohol licensing decisions on local health and crime using natural experiments with synthetic controls. Addiction, 115 (11). pp. 2021-2031. ISSN 0965-2140
Abstract
Background and Aims Given the costs of alcohol to society, it is important to evaluate whether local alcohol licensing decisions can mitigate the effects of alcohol misuse. Robust natural experiment evaluations of the impact of individual licensing decisions could potentially inform and improve local decision‐making. We aimed to assess whether alcohol licensing decisions could be evaluated at small spatial scale by using a causal inference framework.
Design Three natural experiments.
Setting and participants Three English local areas of 1000–15 000 people each.
Intervention and comparator The case study interventions were (i) the closure of a nightclub following reviews; (ii) closure of a restaurant/nightclub following reviews and (iii) implementation of new local licensing guidance (LLG). Trends in outcomes were compared with synthetic counterfactuals created using Bayesian structural time–series.
Measurements Time–series data were obtained on emergency department admissions, ambulance call‐outs and alcohol‐related crime at the Lower or Middle Super Output geographical aggregation level.
Findings Closure of the nightclub led to temporary 4‐month reductions in antisocial behaviour (−18%; 95% credible interval − 37%, −4%), with no change in other outcomes. Closure of the restaurant/nightclub did not lead to measurable changes in outcomes. The new licensing guidance led to small reductions in drunk and disorderly behaviour (nine of a predicted 21 events averted), and the unplanned end of the LLG coincided with an increase in domestic violence of two incidents per month.
Conclusions The impact of local alcohol policy, even at the level of individual premises, can be evaluated using a causal inference framework. Local government actions such as closure or restriction of alcohol venues and alcohol licensing may have a positive impact on health and crime in the immediate surrounding area.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020 The Authors. Addiction published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society for the Study of Addiction. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution‐NonCommercial License, (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. |
Keywords: | Alcohol licensing; Bayesian analysis; counterfactuals; crime; natural experiments; public health; synthetic controls |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health (Sheffield) > School of Health and Related Research (Sheffield) > ScHARR - Sheffield Centre for Health and Related Research The University of Sheffield > Sheffield Teaching Hospitals |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH RESEARCH UNSPECIFIED NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH RESEARCH UNSPECIFIED MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL MR/K023195/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 23 Mar 2020 11:11 |
Last Modified: | 12 Dec 2021 16:53 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/add.15002 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:158369 |