This research examines the relationship between alcohol outlets and social harm measured by Police activity and road traffic crashes. The analysis uses a longitudinal panel data set for the period 2007-2014 covering all of New Zealand. This version 2 report includes a small number of corrections to the original report released in November 2016.
Purpose
This research project was commissioned by the Health Promotion Agency (HPA) and has three overall objectives:
1. To investigate the impacts of alcohol outlet density on police activity at the local (Census Area Unit) level across New Zealand;
2. To evaluate how these impacts have changed between the period before passing of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012 (SSAA) on 18 December 2012, and after; and
3. To evaluate the direct and mediating effects of local alcohol policies (LAPs) on the relationships between alcohol outlet density and police activity.
Methodology
We use longitudinal panel data for the period 2007-2014 covering all of New Zealand to evaluate the relationships between alcohol outlets (by type) and both police events (by type) and motor vehicle accidents. The models are Poisson (count models) that use counts of police events and motor vehicle accidents as outcome variables, and counts of outlets as the key explanatory variables.