National Drug Research Institute
Preventing Harmful Drug Use in Australia
Violence in the night-time
economy: availability and
amenity
Prof Tanya Chikritzhs & Dr Wenbin Liang
www.ndri.curtin.edu.au
Background
• Research indicates strongly that as alcohol becomes
more available through commercial or social sources,
consumption and alcohol-related problems rise.
Conversely, when availability is restricted, alcohol use
and associated problems decrease. (Babor et al. 2010, p
5)
• There is strong evidence that substantial changes in the
number of alcohol outlets result in significant changes to
alcohol consumption and related harm. (p. 131)
Background: what is ‘outlet
density’?
 Number of hotels for every 1,000 residents in a region
 Number of packaged liquor licenses for every hectare in
a region
 Number of restaurants per kilometre of roadway in a
region
OR
 Amount (volume) of alcohol sold/supplied within a region
Changes in outlet density 2003 to
2005
Outlet density
rate /1000
March 03
Tasmania
2.90
Outlet
density rate
/1000 July
05
3.57
% variation
Victoria
3.01
3.62
20.15
Queensland
1.62
1.90
17.87
SA
2.97
3.35
13.00
NSW/ACT
1.73
1.84
6.30
NT
2.55
2.59
1.48
WA
1.91
1.92
0.56
23.18
Outlet density research from
Victoria
• Livingston (2008a): increased outlets over time
strongly related to increased violence in Victoria
but varied by SES and licence type. Hotels
problematic in inner-city entertainment precincts,
off-premise outlets highly associated with
violence in suburban areas.
• Livingston (2008b); explored non-linear relations
between density and violence in Melbourne.
Showed a ‘critical threshold’ for pubs, where
bunching of 30-40 venues risk of violence in and
around surrounding increased from 12 to 40
assaults per/yr.
This study
AIM
To investigate the effects of numbers of outlets,
alcohol sales, and types of alcohol outlets on the
risk of assault at different locations in Western
Australia.
Amenity? Availability? or both?
Sales data collections
• Sales data - volume of wholesale alcohol
purchases made by retailers from
wholesalers
• WA, NT, QLD only – see the National
Alcohol Sales Data Project (NASDP)
Alcohol outlet density studies
• Measure these
association between
numbers of outlets and
harm, e.g. violence, road
crashes,
hospitalisations, suicide,
venereal disease
• Dominated by studies
from the US
• Dominated by countbased studies
USA
Europe
Australia
Design
• Ecological, cross-sectional
• Sales data - volume of wholesale alcohol purchases
made by retailers from wholesalers
• Alcohol sales made by type of licensed outlet
• Police assault data by type of location (domestic,
licensed, other)
• 140 local government areas
• About two and a half postcodes to every one LGA in
2000/01
• 70% outside of metropolitan area
• Controlled for range of demographic and socio-economic
variables
Figure 1: Geographic distribution of total counts of licensed outlets,
Local Government Areas, Western Australia, 2000/01
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
s
ni
gh
tc
lu
b
cl
ub
s
so
ci
al
st
or
es
liq
uo
r
ho
te
ls
ts
% all outlets
% all alcohol sales
ta
ur
an
re
s
%
Profile: WA licensed outlets,
numbers (N=2,576) and alcohol
sales
Profile: police reported assaults
(n= 18,223)
90
80
70
60
%
50
40
30
20
10
0
common/bodily
sexual
wounding
GBH,
manslaughter,
murder
other minor
Profile: place of assault
60
50
%
40
30
20
10
0
residential
on-site outlet
(hotel,restaurant,
nightclub)
other (street, public
place, work)
Profile: residential vs on-site assaults, sex of
victims and perpetrator
80
70
private residence
60
on-site outlet
%
50
40
30
20
10
0
F victim, M perp
M victim, M perp
F victim, F perp
M victim, F perp
Analysis
Numbers of violent assault offences formed the dependent
variable in all analyses arising in individual models:
• i) total assaults;
• ii) assaults at on-site outlets;
• iii) assaults at residential premises
• iv) assaults at ‘other’ places.
• All models simultaneously included measures of alcohol
sales volumes and numbers of both on-site and off-site
outlets as well as the full compliment of potential
demographic and socio-economic confounders.
Results: Incidence rate ratio for on- and off-site numbers of
outlets and average alcohol sales (on-site 3,600 ltrs; offsite 12,000 ltrs)
On-site (hotels, restaurants,
social clubs, nightclubs)
Off-site (liquor stores)
Counts
(per 1 outlet)
Alcohol sales
(per 10,000
ltrs)
Counts
(per 1 outlet)
Alcohol sales
(per 10,000
ltrs)
Total assaults
1.021*
1.021
0.999
1.223*
On-site outlets
1.048*
1.049
0.978
1.198*
Residential
1.008
1.028
1.017
1.261*
Other places
1.027*
1.010
0.990
1.175*
% increase in reported assaults per one
additional average outlet
(on-site 3,600 ltrs; off-site 12,000 ltrs)
40
35
30
%
25
on-site
off-site
20
15
10
5
0
total
on-site
residential
place of assault
other
Summary
• In relation to violence, the amount of alcohol
sold is the most important factor to consider for
liquor stores/packaged liquor outlets (counting
up liquor stores is of little predictive value)
• Alcohol sales by liquor stores/packaged liquor
outlets predicts violence in the domestic settings
and violence in the on-site licensed setting
• Neither alcohol sales nor counts of on-site
outlets predicts violence in domestic settings
• Alcohol sales from liquor stores/packaged liquor
outlets is a much stronger predictor of violence
in and around the night time environment than
numbers of on-site outlets
Implications
Research
•
Outlet density measures which essentially rely on ‘counts’ of licensed premises
necessarily assume that all licensed premises of a certain type, are equivalent
•
In reality, this is not the case, size and capacity to influence overall consumption in a
community may differ markedly between premises, neighbourhoods and communities
•
Off-site outlets largely influence harm via economic availability and its effect on
behaviours such as pre-loading
•
Counting off-site outlets does not adequately describe highly variable alcohol sales
•
How to address this when sales data are not widely available?
•
Counting on-site outlets may be a better measure than sales – probably because onsite outlets influence violence largely via amenity effects than availability effects
•
How much of the ‘outlet density’ jigsaw puzzle are we missing without knowledge of
alcohol sales? Relative absence of sales data in the literature may explain less robust
findings for road crashes, other non-violent harms e.g. chronic morbidity, falls etc
For discussion
Policy
•
Efforts to reduce violence in the night-time economy should not ignore offoutlet sales and their influence on economic availability within communities.
•
Scottish Executive noted the observation by health informants that
“…perhaps front loading was playing a role in antisocial behaviour outside
on-sales, as with the increase of individuals drinking before going out, there
is an increase of people in one location who are already drunk and ‘topping’
up in on-sales which then spills out at the end of the night.” (2007,p. 38).
•
Intervention needs to simultaneously reduce the affordability of alcohol
overall and the disparity between on- and off-outlet beverage prices.
•
Could minimum price per standard drink (price posting, floor price) be an
effective strategy for reducing violence in the night-time economy?
Thankyou