Neil Donnelly, Patricia Menéndez & Nicole Mahoney

NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research

February, 2015

BackgroundEvidence of relationship between total liquor

licence concentrations & some harms (e.g. assaults, motor vehicle accidents)

Local areas with a higher no. of liquor outlets have more of these problems (Gruenewald et al., 2006; Chikritzhs et al., 2007)

However some variability about the most important licensed premises type for these harms (e.g. hotels/on-premises or packaged liquor)

Current outlet density study

Investigate the relationship between liquor licence concentrations and assault rates in New South Wales LGAscross-sectional design using 2011 data

Research questions

Is there an association between liquor licence concentrations in LGAs in NSW and:

1. DV related assault rates?

2. Non-DV related assault rates?

after controlling for important covariates

Are concentrations of particular licence types

associated with higher assault rates?

a) Hotel licences

b) Packaged liquor licences

c) On-Premises licences

d) Club licences

Is there a linear or a non-linear relationship

between liquor licence concentration and assault?

Does this differ by liquor licence type?

Spatial autocorrelation between LGAs and assault rates measured & taken account of

Data sourcesRecorded crime

• DV and non-DV assault incidents in 2011 (COPS data)

• DV & non-DV assault rates (per 1,ooo pop in LGAs)

Liquor licensing • Licence types operating in 2011 (OLGR, NSW)

• Hotel rates (per 1,ooo pop in LGAs)

• Packaged liquor rates • On-Premises rates• Club rates

Other LGA data LGA population size (ERP)

LGA population density

% males aged 15-34 yrs

% Indigenous (ATSI)

Socio-economic disadvantage (SEIFA IRSD)

location category (ARIA)

% born in non-English speaking country

LGAs included 147 of 152 LGAs used in final analyses (97% of

LGAs) Exclusions

City of Sydney Snowy River Broken Hill Urana Conargo

One LGA excluded during final analyses diagnostics as an outlier (n=146; 96% of LGAs)

Warren

AnalysesLog transformation of each assault rate

Linear regression (OLS)Moran’s I - spatial autocorrelation present?

Simultaneous Autoregression (SAR)Lambda (λ) – spatial autocorrelation taken account of?

SAR weighted

Diagnostics – model selection

Mean Median25th

percentile75th

percentile

DV related assault rate

(per 1,000 population)

5.13 3.67 2.55 5.68

Non-DV related assault rate

(per 1,000 population)

5.88 4.83 2.88 7.30

 

 

SAR weighted model

(n=146)

  Estimate SE p value

Constant 7.107 1.328 < .001 *

Hotels linear -0.400 0.175 = .023 *

Hotels non-linear squared -0.324 0.194 = .096

Hotels non-linear cubed 0.236 0.053 < .001 *

Packaged linear -1.647 0.255 < .001 *

Packaged non-linear squared -3.043 0.709 < .001 *

Packaged non-linear cubed 10.974 1.564 < .001 *

On-Premises linear 0.229 0.049 < .001 *

Clubs linear 0.291 0.125 = .020 *

Population density# 0.000 0.000 = .320

Indigenous (%) 0.029 0.006 < .001 *

Males 15-34 years (%) 0.055 0.024 = .023 *

Socio-economic disadvantage -0.007 0.001 < .001 *

Born NES country (%) -0.002 0.013 = .848

City 0.077 0.333 = .817

Outer regional/remote 0.167 0.094 = .075

  λ (lambda) = .237

  LR test = 0.60, p = .439

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

3.5

0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0DV a

ssau

lt ra

te p

er 1

,000

pop

ulati

on (

log)

Hotel concentration per 1,000 population

Figure 1. Hotel concentration and DV assault rate

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

3.5

0.0 0.5 1.0DV

ass

ault

rat

e pe

r 1,0

00 p

opul

ation

(lo

g)

Packaged liquor concentration per 1,000 population

Figure 2. Packaged liquor concentration and DV assault rate

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

3.5

0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0

DV a

ssau

lt ra

te p

er 1

,000

pop

ulati

on (

log)

On-Premises concentration per 1,000 population

Figure 3. On-Premises concentration and DV assault rate

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

3.5

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5DV

ass

ault

rat

e p

er 1

,000

pop

ulati

on (

log)

Club concentration per 1,000 population

Figure 4. Club concentration and DV assault rate

DV assault rate – Elasticity effectsLog-Linear

On-Premises10% increase from mean concentration level produced a

2.2% increase in DV assault rate (log)

Clubs10% increase from mean concentration level produced a

1.3% increase in DV assault rate (log)

 

 

SAR model

(n = 146)

  Estimate SE p value

Constant 6.638 0.681 < .001 *

Hotels linear -0.119 0.108 = .270

Hotels non-linear squared -0.258 0.128 = .045 *

Hotels non-linear cubed 0.146 0.044 = .001 *

Packaged linear -0.852 0.237 < .001 *

Packaged non-linear squared -1.330 0.713 = .062

Packaged non-linear cubed 5.177 1.569 = .001 *

On-Premises linear 0.314 0.051 < .001 *

Clubs linear -0.463 0.200 = .021 *

Clubs non-linear squared 0.494 0.199 = .013 *

Population density# 0.000 0.000 = .057

Indigenous (%) 0.029 0.005 < .001 *

Males 15-34 years (%) 0.090 0.016 < .001 *

Socio-economic disadvantage -0.006 0.001 < .001 *

Born NES country (%) -0.014 0.004 = .001 *

  λ (lambda) = .109

  LR test = 0.90, p = .342

# Population density estimate is -0.0000586

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

3.5

0.0 0.5 1.0

Non

-DV

assa

ult

rate

per

1,0

00 p

opul

ation

(lo

g)

Packaged liquor concentration per 1,000 population

Figure 6. Packaged liquor concentration and non-DV assault rate

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

3.5

0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0

Non

-DV

ass

ault

rat

e p

er 1

,000

pop

ulati

on (

log)

On-Premises concentration per 1,000 population

Figure 7. On-Premises concentration and non-DV assault rate

Non-DV assault rate – Elasticity effectLog-Linear

On-Premises10% increase from mean concentration level produced a

3.0% increase in non-DV assault rate (log)

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

3.5

0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5Non

-DV

assa

ult

rate

per

1,0

00 p

opul

ation

(lo

g)

Club concentration per 1,000 population

Figure 8. Club concentration and non-DV assault rate

SummaryDifferent concentration effects found by licence type

and assault type adjusted for important covariates & spatial autocorrelation

Hotels, very strong non-linear predictor of DV & non-DV assault rates

Packaged liquor also a non-linear predictor but not as strong as hotels

On-Premises, strong linear predictor of both assault rates

Clubs strong linear predictor of DV assault rates non-linear predictor of non-DV assault but smaller effect size

LimitationsHotel licences can also supply packaged alcohol

Does not apply to LGAs with a very high transient population

Lack of alcohol sales data

Cross-sectional study, not longitudinal

General conclusionsConsistent with other cross-sectional outlet density

studies strong relationship between high concentrations of licensed

premises and assault rates

Non-linear effects for hotels of particular policy importance

Longitudinal studies also very important to assess effects of changes in the concentration of licence types