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Systematic review
The impact of policies regulating alcohol trading hours and days on specific alcohol-related harms: a systematic review
  1. Diana C Sanchez-Ramirez,
  2. Donald Voaklander
  1. Injury Prevention Centre, School of Public Health, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
  1. Correspondence to Dr Diana C Sanchez-Ramirez, Injury Prevention Centre, School of Public Health, University of Alberta, Edmonton AB T6G 2E1, Canada; diana.sanchez{at}ualberta.ca

Abstract

Background Evidence supports the expectation that changes in time of alcohol sales associate with changes in alcohol-related harm in both directions. However, to the best of our knowledge, no comprehensive systematic reviews had examined the effect of policies restricting time of alcohol trading on specific alcohol-related harms.

Objective To compile existing evidence related to the impact of policies regulating alcohol trading hours/days of on specific harm outcomes such as: assault/violence, motor vehicle crashes/fatalities, injury, visits to the emergency department/hospital, murder/homicides and crime.

Methods Systematic review of literature studying the impact of policies regulation alcohol trading times in alcohol-related harm, published between January 2000 and October 2016 in English language.

Results Results support the premise that policies regulating times of alcohol trading and consumption can contribute to reduce injuries, alcohol-related hospitalisations/emergency department visits, homicides and crime. Although the impact of alcohol trading policies in assault/violence and motor vehicle crashes/fatalities is also positive, these associations seem to be more complex and require further study.

Conclusion Evidence suggests a potential direct effect of policies that regulate alcohol trading times in the prevention of injuries, alcohol-related hospitalisations, homicides and crime. The impact of these alcohol trading policies in assault/violence and motor vehicle crashes/fatalities is less compelling.

  • Alcohol
  • policy
  • trading time
  • harm.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/injuryprev-2016-042285

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors Both authors of this paper have contributed substantially to the development of this systematic review, including: conception and design, analysis and interpretation of the data, drafting or revising the article for important intellectual content and approval of the final version.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Correction notice This paper has been updated since it first published online. The name of the second author, Donald Voaklander, has been corrected. Owing to a scripting error, some of the publisher names in the references were replaced with ’BMJ Publishing Group'. This only affected the full text version, not the PDF. We have since corrected these errors and the correct publishers have been inserted into the references.