Citation

Sherk A, Stockwell T, Callaghan RC. Drug Alcohol Rev. 2018; 37(Suppl 1): S357-S365.

Affiliation

Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/dar.12670

PMID

29431280

Abstract

INTRODUCTION AND AIMS: The province of Saskatchewan, Canada introduced minimum prices graded by alcohol strength in April 2010. As previous research found this intervention significantly decreased alcohol consumption and alcohol-attributable morbidity, we aim to test the association between the intervention and the rate of emergency department (ED) visits in four alcohol-related injury categories [motor vehicle collisions (MVC), assaults, falls and total alcohol-related injuries]. DESIGN AND METHODS: Data on ED visits in the city of Regina were obtained from the Saskatchewan Ministry of Health. Auto-regressive integrated moving average time series models were used to test the immediate and lagged effects of the pricing intervention on rates of alcohol-related nighttime. ED visits and controlled for daytime rates of ED visits, economic variables, linear and seasonal trends, and auto-regressive and moving average effects.

RESULTS: The implementation of an alcohol minimum pricing strategy in Saskatchewan was associated with decreased MVC-related ED visits for women aged 26 and over after a 6 month lag period (-39.4%, P < 0.001). There was no significant abrupt effect of this intervention on ED visits of four injury types in any of four gender-age categories; however, rates of ED visits among young males for MVCs and assaults decreased substantially during this study.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: The minimum pricing policy change led to a lagged decrease in motor vehicle-collision-related ED visits for women older than 25. Of note, there did not appear to be an instantaneous effect on the rate of alcohol-related injury ED visits immediately after the policy implementation nor lagged effects for other gender-age groups.

© 2018 Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and other Drugs.

Language: en

Keywords

ARIMA time series modelling; alcohol minimum pricing; alcohol policy; emergency department visit; public health and safety