Much of the literature on the determinants of health, including alcohol consumption, has focussed on differences in individual socio-economic status as a primary risk factor. However, it has been shown that variation in health between places can be attributed to both the characteristics of the people who live in those places (composition) and also to the characteristics of the places where people live (context). From the 1990s, there has been considerable interest in the role of neighbourhoods, specifically whether their social and physical characteristics are important in explaining inequalities in health. The main aim of this thesis is to determine the influence of ‘place’ effects on alcohol-related behaviour and health and social outcomes in New Zealand. To achieve this, data was obtained for hospitalisation and mortality directly related to alcohol consumption. Age standardised rates of alcohol related hospitalisation and mortality were calculated for different census areas units over time. Secondly, a database of all alcohol outlets including type and category was obtained from the Liquor Licensing Authority and geocoded for all meshblocks in New Zealand. Using ArcGIS road network functionality, least cost distance to nearest alcohol outlets was calculated. In addition, two buffers (800 and 3000 metres) were created around the population weighted centroids of each meshblock. Statistical analysis was undertaken to examine the distribution of alcohol outlets in areas of differing socio-economic status. Thirdly, binary logistic regression was used to examine the relationship between various access measures developed and individual alcohol related behaviour from the New Zealand Health Survey (2006/07). Lastly, Ordinary Least Squares regression was used to establish the association between the density of alcohol outlets and crime, and alcohol related hospitalisation. The results reveal there is increasing geographic inequality of both hospitalisation and mortality between the most and the least deprived areas in New Zealand. Secondly, the results consistently show there is inequity in the availability of alcohol outlets; there are clear social patterns in the distribution of alcohol outlets with disproportionately high numbers in more socially deprived neighbourhoods. Thirdly, at the national level, after controlling for potential confounding factors, there was no association between either hazardous or frequent consumption of alcohol and access to alcohol outlets. However, there was an association for particular sub-populations in regards to hazardous and frequent consumption and access to alcohol outlets. Fourthly, although the explained variance was often quite low in outcome models for crime and hospitalisation, nevertheless most of the variance for crime was predicted by the density of alcohol outlets. A number of important theoretical and policy implications flow from this study. Alcohol outlets are modifiable structures in the environments that are amenable to policy interventions at a community and national level. Interventions could concentrate on three aspects to reduce excess consumption; zoning ordinances, reducing alcohol outlets in deprived areas and increased alcohol taxation. Starting with the first proposed intervention, zoning ordinances provide communities and local governments with the opportunity to regulate outlet numbers and locations as well as their trading hours. This intervention has the potential to reduce opportunities for obtaining alcohol. Secondly, a reduction in the number of alcohol outlets is likely to reduce consumption and consequently improve health and social outcomes. Finally, higher alcohol prices via increased taxation is likely to be a deterrent to excess consumption and related health outcomes. Three priority areas are identified and recommended for future research. Studies using a mixture of both qualitative and quantitative methods, to better understand the association between local purchases of alcohol, consumption and proximity to alcohol outlets would be beneficial. In addition, the use of qualitative methods to examine the influence of social capital and cohesion, culture and norms on alcohol consumption in areas with higher densities of, and better access to alcohol outlets, is imperative. Lastly, longitudinal studies are also recommended to investigate increases or decreases in the number of alcohol outlets over time and the impact of such changes on the consumption patterns of different sub-populations.

Crime associated with alcohol consumption poses a serious problem. There is a variety of approaches that try to conceptualize this relationship. One of the most progressive approaches is that of emphasizing the effects of alcohol outlets on crime associated with alcohol consumption. Even though it is a well-established field in other regions, in Czech Republic, there are no available studies dealing with the relationship of alcohol outlets and crime associated with alcohol consumption. This diploma thesis deals with the association of on-premise alcohol outlets and crime in Czech Republic. The unit of analysis used in this diploma thesis was police districts. In the final data set, we had 517 police districts. For all of the police districts, the incidence rates of crime, on-premise alcohol outlet densities and other characteristics were obtained. Analysis by the means of linear regression and geographically weighted regression was performed on data. The results of analysis indicate that on-premise alcohol densities are associated with all examined crime incidence rates (except of road accidents), even after adjusting for other variables. Also, there is a non-trivial spatial variation in data. The regression models had high explanatory power. The results of this diploma thesis imply that it is...

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Increases in alcohol availability have caused crime rates to escalate across multiple regions around the world. As individuals consume alcohol they experience impaired judgment and a dose-response escalation in aggression that, for some, leads to criminal behaviour. By limiting alcohol availability it is possible to reduce crime; however, the literature remains mixed on the best practices for alcohol access restrictions. Variances in data quality and statistical methods have created an inconsistency in the reported effects of price, hour of sales, and alcohol outlet restrictions on crime. Most notably, the research findings are influenced by the different effects of alcohol establishments on crime. The objective of this PhD research was to develop novel quantitative approaches to establish the extent alcohol access (outlets) influences the frequency of crime (liquor, disorder, violent) at a fine level of spatial detail (x,y locations and block groups). Analyses were focused on British Columbia’s largest cities where policies are changing to allow greater alcohol access, but little is known about the crime-alcohol access relationship. Two reviews were conducted to summarize and contrast the effects of alcohol access restrictions (price, hours of sales, alcohol outlet density) on crime, and evaluate the state-of-the-art in statistical methods used to associate crime with alcohol availability. Results highlight key methodological limitations and fragmentation in alcohol policy effects on crime across multiple disciplines. Using a spatial data science approach, recommendations were made to increase spatial detail in modelling to limit the scale effects on crime-alcohol association. Providing guidelines for alcohol-associated crime reduction, kernel density space-time change detection methods were also applied to provide the first evaluation of active policing on alcohol-associated crime in the Granville St. entertainment district of Vancouver, British Columbia. Foot patrols were able to reduce the spatial density of crime, but hot spots of liquor and violent assaults remained within 60m proximity to bars (nightclubs). To estimate the association between alcohol establishment size, and type on disorder and violent crime reports in block groups across Victoria, British Columbia a Poisson Generalized Linear Model with spatial lag effects was applied. Estimates provided the factor increase (1.0009) expected in crime for every additional patron seat added to an establishment capacity, and indicated that establishments should be spaced greater than 300m a part to significantly reduce alcohol-associated crime. These results offer the first evaluation of seating capacity and establishment spacing on alcohol-associated crime for alcohol license decision making, and are pertinent at a time when alcohol policy reform is being prioritized by the British Columbia government. In summary, this dissertation contributes 1) cross-disciplinary policy and methodological reviews, 2) expands the application of spatial statistics to alcohol-attributable crime research, 3) advances knowledge on local scale of effects of different alcohol establishment types on crime, 4) and develops transferable models to estimate the effects of alcohol establishment seating capacity and proximity between establishments on the frequency of crime. / Graduate / 2018-02-27

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The objective of this research is to examine the development of the California alcohol outlets over time and the relationship between neighborhood characteristics and densities of the alcohol outlets. Two types of advanced analyses were done after the usual preliminary description of data. Firstly, fixed and random effects linear regression were used for the county panel data across time (1945-2010) with a dummy variable added to capture the change in law regarding limitations on alcohol outlets density. Secondly, a Bayesian spatio-temporal Poisson regression of the census tract panel data was conducted to capture recent availability of population characteristics affecting outlet density. The spatial Conditional Autoregressive model was embedded in the Poisson regression to detect spatial dependency of unexplained variance of alcohol outlet density. The results show that the alcohol outlets density reduced under the limitation law over time. However, it was no more effective in reducing the growth of alcohol outlets after the limitation was modified to be more restrictive. Poorer, higher vacancy rate and lower percentage of Black neighborhoods tend to have higher alcohol outlet density (numbers of alcohol outlets to population ratio) for both on-sale general and off-sale general. Other characteristics like percentage of Hispanics, percentage of Asians, percentage of younger population and median income of adjacency neighbors were associated with densities of on-sale general and off sale general alcohol outlets. Some regions like the San Francisco Bay area and the Greater Los Angeles area have more alcohol outlets than the predictions of neighborhood characteristics included in the model.