Alcohol-outlet density and violence are clearly linked over time

Alcohol-outlet density and violence are clearly linked over time

• A new Australian study examines the relationship between alcohol-outlet density and violence over time.
• All three types of outlets examined – hotel pubs, bars and packaged-liquor outlets –had positive relationships with assault rates.
• Hotel pubs and bars were the biggest drivers of violence in inner-city areas, while packaged-liquor outlets were more important in suburban areas.

While previous studies have confirmed a relationship between alcohol-outlet density and violence, few have looked at what happens within a suburb as outlet density changes. An Australian study examined this relationship over time … finding that increasing the density of all kinds of alcohol outlets in a suburb leads to increasing rates of violence in that suburb.

Results will be published in the June issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently available at OnlineEarly.

“The literature shows that suburbs with more alcohol outlets experience more violence, but only a handful of papers have explored what happens within a suburb as outlet density changes,” explained Michael Livingston, a research fellow at the Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre and the study’s sole author. “In addition, the study examined whether different types of outlets – hotel pubs, bars and restaurants, packaged-liquor outlets – had different effects in specific types of suburbs – inner-city, outer-suburbs, etc. – which is a question that few studies in this area have examined.”

“A longitudinal study like this provides much stronger evidence about the causal nature of any relationships found,” added Robin Room, director of the Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation Centre for Alcohol Policy Research and professor in the school of population health at the University of Melbourne.

Livingston gathered and analyzed nine years of information, from the years 1996 to 2005, for three groupings of data: three types of alcohol outlets – general (hotel), on-premise (nightclubs, restaurants and bars), and packaged – using liquor-licensing records; alcohol-related violence, using police-recorded night-time assault numbers; and 186 postcodes (the equivalent of zip codes) in the metropolitan area of Melbourne, corresponding to roughly 85 percent of the population. The postcodes were further grouped into five clusters, based on socio-demographics.

“The study found that, across Melbourne, the three types of outlets examined – hotel pubs, bars, and packaged liquor outlets – all had positive relationships to assault rates,” said Livingston. “In other words, increasing the density of these outlets in a suburb leads to increasing rates of violence in that suburb. When these relationships were explored for specific types of suburbs, it was found that hotels and bars were the biggest drivers of violence in inner-city areas and packaged liquor outlets were more important in suburban areas.”