Online Program

281414
Development of comprehensive measures of alcohol-policy enforcement


Monday, November 4, 2013 : 11:10 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

Patricia Rutledge, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Allegheny College, Meadville, PA
Kathleen Lenk, MPH, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Rhonda Jones-Webb, DrPH, Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Toben F. Nelson, ScD, Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Traci L. Toomey, PhD, Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Darin J. Erickson, PhD, Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Alcohol control policies can reduce the health and social problems that result from alcohol use and abuse; however, adequate enforcement is needed for these policies to be effective. Little is known about patterns of alcohol enforcement among law enforcement agencies. We sought to address this knowledge gap by surveying a random sample of 1,632 local law enforcement agencies located across the 50 states in the U.S. regarding a wide variety of alcohol enforcement activities (response rate 66.3%; n=1,082). Our goal was first to characterize patterns of alcohol enforcement activities for each of five key domains at the agency level, and then to aggregate these results to the state level to obtain a statewide enforcement measure. The domains included: 1) underage possession and consumption, 2) underage provision, 3) underage compliance checks, 4) drinking and driving, and 5) overservice. For each domain, we measured five to seven enforcement activities, and used latent class analysis (LCA) to identify groups of agencies based on these enforcement activities. We identified three to five groups of agencies for each domain. For example, in the underage-provision domain (with six types of enforcement activities) we identified three classes: 1) agencies focused primarily on social-host enforcement (22%), 2) agencies focused primarily on education efforts (15%), and 3) agencies with little underage-provision enforcement (63%). In addition to agency-level findings, we will present results in which we aggregated the classes of the five domains to the state level. Implications for how findings can help shape law enforcement practices will be discussed.

Learning Areas:

Epidemiology
Public health or related public policy
Public health or related research

Learning Objectives:
Identify patterns of alcohol enforcement among local law enforcement agencies in each of five domains: 1) underage possession and consumption, 2) underage provision, 3) underage compliance checks, 4) drinking and driving, and 5) overservice. Describe how patterns of alcohol enforcement can be aggregated to the state level to obtain a statewide enforcement measure.

Keyword(s): Alcohol, Policy/Policy Development

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am an experimental psychologist who has completed a post-doctoral appointment in the area of alcohol use and abuse and who currently is working with a team of alcohol epidemiologists at a major school of public health. I have published a number of papers on alcohol use and abuse.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.