Abstract
BackgroundAlcohol related violence continues to be a major public health problem in the United States. In particular, there is substantial evidence of an association between alcohol outlets and assault. However, because the specific geographic relationships between alcohol outlets and the distribution of violence remains obscured, it is important to identify the spatial linkages that may exist, enhancing public health efforts to curb both violence and morbidity.MethodsThe present study utilizes police-recorded data on simple and aggravated assaults in Cincinnati, Ohio. Addresses of alcohol outlets for Cincinnati, including all bars, alcohol-serving restaurants, and off-premise liquor and convenience stores were obtained from the Ohio Division of Liquor Control and geocoded for analysis. A combination of proximity analysis, spatial cluster detection approaches and a geographic information system were used to identify clusters of alcohol outlets and the distribution of violence around them.ResultsA brief review of the empirical work relating to alcohol outlet density and violence is provided, noting that the majority of this literature is cross-sectional and ecological in nature, yielding a somewhat haphazard and aggregate view of how outlet type(s) and neighborhood characteristics like social organization and land use are related to assaultive violence. The results of the statistical analysis for Cincinnati suggest that while alcohol outlets are not problematic per se, assaultive violence has a propensity to cluster around agglomerations of alcohol outlets. This spatial relationship varies by distance and is also related to the characteristics of the alcohol outlet agglomeration. Specifically, spatially dense distributions of outlets appear to be more prone to clusters of assaultive violence when compared to agglomerations with a lower density of outlets.ConclusionWith a more thorough understanding of the spatial relationships between alcohol outlets and the distribution of assaults, policymakers in urban areas can make more informed regulatory decisions regarding alcohol licenses. Further, this research suggests that public health officials and epidemiologists need to develop a better understanding of what actually occurs in and around alcohol outlets, determining what factors (whether outlet, neighborhood, or spatially related) help fuel their relationship with violence and other alcohol-related harm.
Highlights
Alcohol related violence continues to be a major public health problem in the United States
Several studies from the disciplines of criminology, epidemiology, sociology, public health, and geography have found an association between alcohol outlet density and violence rates [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
Other studies take a different approach, focusing on the strength of the ecological association between outlet density and assault and how it may be moderated by neighborhood characteristics like socioeconomic disadvantage [2,13,14], social organization [15], and land use [16]. The latter studies are of interest to us, as they examine the characteristics of spaces that are associated with higher rates of crime and violence in those spaces
Summary
Alcohol related violence continues to be a major public health problem in the United States. The latter studies are of interest to us, as they examine the characteristics of spaces (e.g., neighborhoods, census tracts, block groups) that are associated with higher rates of crime and violence in those spaces While these analyses consistently find a positive ecological association between alcohol outlet density and assault rate, they do not provide an understanding of how violence is geographically distributed around outlets and clusters of outlets. At most these studies usually view spatial relationships like autocorrelation as a nuisance and control for it in their models. The authors found that while the general patterns held, there was substantial variation within the larger units
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