A study on effectiveness of local alcohol policy: Challenges and solutions in the PAKKA project

Abstract

To an increasing degree, alcohol policy and prevention in the Nordic countries is expected to be carried out on the local level as the free-trade agreements and international harmonization of alcohol taxes and regulations are limiting the scope of traditional national alcohol policies. In recent reviews on the effectiveness of alcohol political interventions the recommended strategy for local communities is to combine community mobilization with various types of environmental strategies focused on the supply of alcoholic beverages. The PAKKA project continues the international tradition of research on community-based prevention of alcohol-related harms. In this paper we discuss the challenges and solutions of evaluating community-based prevention projects, using the recently started ‘PAKKA’ (Local Alcohol Policy) project as a concrete example. The PAKKA project relies on a mixed-intervention strategy attempting to change the local social, economic and physical environment related to risky and under-age drinking. In measuring the project's effectiveness a quasi-experimental research design is used. In our research design we have had to tackle three interconnected problems: the problems of causality in a multi-component population level study, the problem of generalizability and the complex role of the researcher.