Preventing Excessive Alcohol Consumption: Maintaining Limits on Hours of Sale

Research Gaps

What are Research Gaps?

Prior to and during the literature review and data analysis, the review team and the Community Preventive Services Task Force attempt to address the key questions of what interventions work, for whom, under what conditions, and at what cost. Lack of sufficient information often leaves one or more of these questions unanswered. The Community Guide refers to these as "research gaps." Research gaps can be pulled together as a narrative or in the form of a basic set of questions to inform a research agenda for those in the field.

Identified Research Gaps

• All existing research on hours of sale to date has been conducted in nations other than the United States. It would be useful to have studies of changes in hours of sale in U.S. settings to confirm results from other settings.
• All research thus far has assessed the effects of increasing hours of sale. While it may be a less frequent event, evaluating the effects of reducing hours of sale for preventing excessive alcohol consumption and related harms would be useful.
• Evidence on changes in hours of sale of <2 hours is currently insufficient because of inconsistent findings. Thus, when such changes occur, it may be worthwhile to assess the effects of smaller changes in hours of sale on excessive alcohol consumption and related harms to improve our understanding of the “dose-response” and “threshold” relationships between changes in hours of sale and public health outcomes.
• Additional research is needed to more fully assess the costs and benefits of restricting the number of hours when alcohol is sold. From a societal perspective, economic elements should include:
  • Intervention costs
  • Loss in sales, tax revenues, and employment
  • Reductions in fatal and nonfatal injuries, crime, and violence
  • Gains in safety and public order
  • Averted loss of household and workplace productivity
• Finally, we found no studies that assessed the effects of changes in hours of sale in off-premises settings.  While consumers at off-premises settings are less likely to be directly affected by the effects of excessive consumption at the place of purchase, it is nevertheless possible that changes in availability in these settings may also affect alcohol-related harms.  This issue merits investigation.