The Spatio-Temporal Relationship Between Alcohol Outlets And Violence Before And After Privatization: A Natural Experiment, Seattle, Wa 2010-2013

Publication date: Available online 1 September 2016 Source:Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology Author(s): Loni Philip Tabb, Lance Ballester, Tony H. Grubesic Alcohol-related violence is a well-documented public health concern, where various individual and community-level factors contribute to this relationship. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of a significant policy change at the local level, which privatized liquor sales and distribution. Specifically, we explored the relationship between alcohol and violence in Seattle, WA, 2010-2013, via hierarchical spatio-temporal disease mapping models. To measure and map this complex spatio-temporal relationship at the census block group level [ n = 567 ), we examined a variety of models using integrated nested Laplace approximations and used the deviance information criterion to gauge model complexity and fit. For each additional off-premises and on-premises alcohol outlet in a given census block group, we found a significant increase of 8% and 5% for aggravated assaults and 6% and 5% for non-aggravated assaults, respectively. Lastly, our maps showed variation in the estimated relative risks across the city of Seattle.
Source: Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology - Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research