ALCOHOL OUTLET DENSITY AND MOTOR-VEHICLE CRASHES IN LOS-ANGELES-COUNTY CITIES

The extent to which the availability of alcohol encourages alcohol con sumption resulting in alcohol-related problems remains controversial. In order to address this issue we used 1990 data from 72 cities within Los Angeles County to estimate the relation between densities of four types of alcohol outlets (restaurants, bars, liquor stores, mini-mark ets) and rates of two types of alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes r eported by police (injury, property damage). After logarithmic transfo rmation of variables, crash rates were regressed on outlet densities a nd possible demographic confounders. The demographic covariates accoun ted for 25% of the variance in injury crashes; adding the combined out let density to the model yielded a significant elasticity estimate (be ta +/- SE) (beta = 0.55 +/- 0.13). Separate models for types of outlet s yielded significant elasticities for restaurants (beta = 0.22 +/- 0. 07), liquor stores (beta = 0.46 +/- 0.17) and mini-markets (beta = 0.3 4 +/- 0.13), but not for bars (beta = 0.08 +/- 0.07). Alcohol-related crashes resulting in property damage also showed positive associations with outlet densities, but these associations were smaller and reache d statistical significance far restaurants (beta = 0.19 +/- 0.11) and bars (beta = 0.21 +/- 0.10). Direction of influence cannot be inferred from these cross-sectional findings, but they do indicate that increa sed alcohol availability is geographically associated with increased a lcohol-related motor vehicle crashes and that this association is inde pendent of measured confounders.