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Excessive Alcohol Consumption: Regulation of Alcohol Outlet Density

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 are pulled together in the form of a basic set of questions to inform a research agenda for those in the field.

Identified Research Gaps

Results from the Community Guide review indicate that the regulation of alcohol outlet density can be an effective means of controlling excessive alcohol consumption and related harms. It would be useful, however, to conduct additional research in the following areas to further assess this relationship.

There are few, if any, studies evaluating how local decisions are made regarding policies affecting alcoholic beverage outlet density, or the consequences of such policy changes. While such case studies may be difficult to conduct, they could provide important insights to guide policy decisions regarding alcohol outlet density in other communities.
The majority of outlet density research explores the impact of increasing alcohol outlet density on alcohol-related outcomes; there is a lack of research on the impact of reducing outlet density. This might be done by observing the impact of temporal changes in outlet density on excessive alcohol consumption and related harms.
Relatively little is known about the impact of density changes relative to baseline density levels. Some authors have proposed that the association between outlet density and alcohol consumption follows a demand curve, such that when density is relatively low, increases in density may be expected to have large effects on consumption, and when density is relatively high, increases in density should be expected to have smaller effects. Thus, it would be useful to assess this hypothesis empirically, using econometric methods, with different kinds of alcohol-related outcomes. Such information would allow communities at different alcohol outlet density “levels” to project the possible benefits of reducing density by specific amounts or the potential harms of increasing density.
For public health practitioners, legislators, and others attempting to control alcohol outlet density to reduce alcohol-related harms, it would be useful to catalog approaches to regulation beyond licensing and zoning that may have an effect on outlet density (e.g., traffic or parking regulations which, in effect, control the number of driving patrons who may patronize an alcohol outlet).
The primary rationale for limiting alcohol outlet density is to improve public health and safety. Furthermore, the economic efficiency of limiting outlet density is difficult to assess without data on the economic impact of this intervention. To remedy this, future studies on the impact of changes in alcohol outlet density should assess both health and economic outcomes, so that the economic impact of this intervention can be assessed empirically.