Search

Objectives: We investigated whether periodic increases in minimum alcohol prices were associated with reduced alcohol-attributable hospital admissions in British Columbia., Methods: The longitudinal panel study (2002-2009) incorporated minimum alcohol prices, density of alcohol outlets, and age- and gender-standardized rates of acute, chronic, and 100% alcohol-attributable admissions. We applied mixed-method regression models to data from 89 geographic areas of British Columbia across 32 time periods, adjusting for spatial and temporal autocorrelation, moving average effects, season, and a range of economic and social variables., Results: A 10% increase in the average minimum price of all alcoholic beverages was associated with an 8.95% decrease in acute alcohol-attributable admissions and a 9.22% reduction in chronic alcohol-attributable admissions 2 years later. A Can$ 0.10 increase in average minimum price would prevent 166 acute admissions in the 1st year and 275 chronic admissions 2 years later. We also estimated significant, though smaller, adverse impacts of increased private liquor store density on hospital admission rates for all types of alcohol-attributable admissions., Conclusions: Significant health benefits were observed when minimum alcohol prices in British Columbia were increased. By contrast, adverse health outcomes were associated with an expansion of private liquor stores.

Aim: To investigate relationships between periodic increases in minimum alcohol prices, changing densities of liquor stores and alcohol-attributable (AA) deaths in British Columbia, Canada., Design: Cross-section (16 geographic areas) versus time-series (32 annual quarters) panel analyses were conducted with AA deaths as dependent variables and price, outlet densities and socio-demographic characteristics as independent variables., Setting and Participants: Populations of 16 Health Service Delivery Areas in British Columbia, Canada., Measurements: Age-sex-standardized rates of acute, chronic and wholly AA mortality; population densities of restaurants, bars, government and private liquor stores; minimum prices of alcohol in dollars per standard drink., Findings: A 10% increase in average minimum price for all alcoholic beverages was associated with a 31.72% [95% confidence interval (CI): ± 25.73%, P < 0.05] reduction in wholly AA deaths. Significantly negative lagged associations were also detected up to 12 months after minimum price increases for wholly but not for acute or chronic AA deaths. Significant reductions in chronic and total AA deaths were detected between 2 and 3 years after minimum price increases. Significant but inconsistent lagged associations were detected for acute AA deaths. A 10% increase in private liquor stores was associated with a 2.45% (95% CI: ± 2.39%, P < 0.05), 2.36% (95% CI: ± 1.57%, P < 0.05) and 1.99% (95% CI: ± 1.76%, P < 0.05) increase in acute, chronic and total AA mortality rates., Conclusion: Increases in the minimum price of alcohol in British Columbia, Canada, between 2002 and 2009 were associated with immediate and delayed decreases in alcohol-attributable mortality. By contrast, increases in the density of private liquor stores were associated with increases in alcohol-attributable mortality., (© 2013 The Authors, Addiction © 2013 Society for the Study of Addiction.)