Holmes, J. orcid.org/0000-0001-9283-2151, Guo, Y., Maheswaran, R. et al. (3 more authors) (2014) The impact of spatial and temporal availability of alcohol on its consumption and related harms: A critical review in the context of UK licensing policies. Drug and Alcohol Review, 33 (5). pp. 515-525. ISSN 0959-5236
Abstract
Issues. Reviews recommend controlling alcohol availability to limit alcohol-related harm. However, the translation of this evidence into policy processes has proved challenging in some jurisdictions.
Approach. This paper presents a critical review of empirical spatial and temporal availability research to identify its features and limitations for informing alcohol availability policies. The UK is used as an example jurisdiction. It reviews 138 studies from a 2008 systematic review of empirical availability research and our update of this to January 2014. Data describing study characteristics (settings, measures, design) were extracted and descriptively analysed.
Key Findings. Important limitations in current evidence were identified: (i) outlet-level temporal availability was only measured in three studies, and there has been little innovation in measurement of spatial availability; (ii) empirical analyses focus on acute harms with few studies of longer-term harms; (iii) outlets are typically classified at aggregated levels with little empirical analysis of variation within outlet categories; (iv) evidence comes from a narrow range of countries; and (v) availability away from home, online availability and interactions between availability, price and place are all relatively unexamined.
Implications. Greater innovation in study and measure design and enhanced data quality are required. Greater engagement between researchers and policy actors when developing studies would facilitate this.
Conclusions. Research and data innovations are needed to address a series of methodological gaps and limitations in the alcohol availability evidence base, advance this research area and enable findings to be translated effectively into policy processes
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2014 The Authors. Drug and Alcohol Review published by Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd on behalf of Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and other Drugs. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | alcohol consumption; spatial analysis; review; alcohol outlet density |
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 |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL G1000043/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 03 Aug 2016 14:07 |
Last Modified: | 23 Jun 2023 21:56 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/dar.12191 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/dar.12191 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:93125 |