Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 16, 2026

Modeling Alcohol Consumption in Rodents Using Two-Bottle Choice Home Cage Drinking and Microstructural Analysis
Published on: November 8, 2024
Varying impacts of alcohol outlet densities on violent assaults: explaining differences across neighborhoods
Christina Mair1, Paul J Gruenewald, William R Ponicki
1Prevention Research Center, Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, Berkeley, CA 94704, USA. cmair@prev.org
Objective:
Groups of potentially violent drinkers may frequent areas of communities with large numbers of alcohol outlets, especially bars, leading to greater rates of alcohol-related assaults. This study assessed direct and moderating effects of bar densities on assaults across neighborhoods.
Method:
We analyzed longitudinal population data relating alcohol outlet densities (total outlet density, proportion bars/pubs, proportion off-premise outlets) to hospitalizations for assault injuries in California across residential ZIP code areas from 1995 through 2008 (23,213 space-time units). Because few ZIP codes were consistently defined over 14 years and these units are not independent, corrections for unit misalignment and spatial autocorrelation were implemented using Bayesian space-time conditional autoregressive models.
Results:
Assaults were related to outlet densities in local and surrounding areas, the mix of outlet types, and neighborhood characteristics. The addition of one outlet per square mile was related to a small 0.23% increase in assaults. A 10% greater proportion of bars in a ZIP code was related to 7.5% greater assaults, whereas a 10% greater proportion of bars in surrounding areas was related to 6.2% greater assaults. The impacts of bars were much greater in areas with low incomes and dense populations.
Conclusions:
The effect of bar density on assault injuries was well supported and positive, and the magnitude of the effect varied by neighborhood characteristics. Posterior distributions from these models enabled the identification of locations most vulnerable to problems related to alcohol outlets.
Related Concept Videos
Hypothesis Test for Test of Independence
H0: The two variables (factors)...
Bystander Effect
Aggression
Impact of Social Context on Individuals
Factors Influencing Attraction I: Proximity
Confounding in Epidemiological Studies

