Effects of the Minimum Drinking Age on Mortality, Nonfatal Injury, and Crime

最低饮酒年龄对死亡率、非致命伤害和犯罪的影响

• 批准号: 7356308
• 负责人: CHRISTOPHER S. CARPENTER
• 金额: $ 9.83万
• 依托单位: NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-09-30 至 2010-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7356308
• 关键词: Adverse effects; Adverse event; Affect; Age; Alcohol consumption; Alcohols; Cause of Death; Cessation of life; Characteristics; Crime; Data; Disease regression; Ethnic Origin; Frequencies; Goals; Health; Health Policy; Heavy Drinking; Hospitalization; Individual; Injury; Laws; Measures; Outcome; Personal Satisfaction; Policies; Probability; Public Health; Race; Rate; Research; Research Design; Research Project Grants; Series; Side; Surveys; United States; Work; Youth; alcohol availability; base; design; drinking; experience; interest; legal drinking age; mortality; preference; racial and ethnic disparities; social; treatment effect; trend; underage drinking; young adult

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A large body of research has established that there is a strong association between excessive alcohol consumption and numerous adverse health and social outcomes, but there is less evidence as to what proportion of this correlation is causal. This project will estimate the effect of alcohol consumption on the probability of arrest, hospitalization, and death by exploiting the fact that an individual's access to alcohol increases discretely at age 21 the minimum legal drinking age in the US. This institutional feature allows the use of a regression discontinuity design (RDD) to obtain unbiased estimates of the effect of alcohol consumption on the rate of adverse outcomes. The RDD approach takes advantage of a situation in which the treatment of interest varies discontinuously across some predetermined threshold (e.g. a discontinuous change in alcohol availability upon turning age 21). In this case, comparisons of individuals just on either side of the threshold will yield an unbiased estimate of the true effect of the treatment on outcomes since -- apart from the treatment of interest -- all other variables will trend smoothly across the discontinuity. This research will implement a series of RDD analyses using both survey and confidential administrative data on alcohol consumption, arrests, hospitalizations and deaths to identify the reduced form causal effects of minimum drinking age laws on alcohol consumption and its adverse outcomes. The first step will be documenting how both the frequency and intensity of alcohol consumption change at age 21. The next step will be to determine which types of injuries, causes of death, and types of crimes are causing any abrupt increases in adverse events and how this varies by race and ethnicity. Combining the reduced form estimates will give the implied Instrumental Variables estimate of the return to reducing alcohol consumption. The overall goal of this research project is to provide estimates of the returns to reducing alcohol consumption that policymakers can use when they are considering policies intended to reduce the adverse effects of alcohol consumption. The credible research design and the fact that the study focuses on a broad array of the adverse effects of alcohol consumption among youth mean it is well suited to accomplishing this important goal. Relevance This research project will evaluate the degree to which the minimum legal drinking age in the United States reduces alcohol consumption, mortality, injury, and crime among young adults. Since underage drinking rates in the US remain at startlingly high levels, our results will have important implications for the design of public health policies that would limit the availability of alcohol to youths. In so doing, this project will have the potential to reduce alcohol related harms experienced by youths.

描述（由申请人提供）：大量研究已经证实，过量饮酒与许多不利的健康和社会后果之间存在密切关联，但很少有证据表明这种相关性中有多少比例是因果关系。该项目将利用个人在 21 岁（美国最低法定饮酒年龄）时饮酒量离散增加的事实，来估计饮酒对被捕、住院和死亡概率的影响。这一制度特征允许使用断点回归设计（RDD）来获得饮酒对不良结果发生率影响的无偏估计。 RDD 方法利用了一种情况，即感兴趣的治疗在某个预定阈值上不连续变化（例如，21 岁后酒精供应量不连续变化）。在这种情况下，对阈值两侧的个体进行比较将得出治疗对结果的真实影响的公正估计，因为除了感兴趣的治疗之外，所有其他变量都将在不连续性上平滑地趋向。这项研究将利用有关饮酒、逮捕、住院和死亡的调查和机密行政数据进行一系列 RDD 分析，以确定最低饮酒年龄法对饮酒及其不良后果的因果影响。第一步将记录 21 岁时饮酒的频率和强度如何变化。下一步将是确定哪些类型的伤害、死亡原因和犯罪类型导致不良事件突然增加，以及如何这因种族和民族而异。结合简化形式的估计将给出减少酒精消费回报的隐含工具变量估计。该研究项目的总体目标是提供减少酒精消费的回报估计，供政策制定者在考虑旨在减少酒精消费的不利影响的政策时使用。可靠的研究设计以及该研究重点关注青少年饮酒的一系列不利影响这一事实意味着它非常适合实现这一重要目标。 相关性 该研究项目将评估美国最低法定饮酒年龄在多大程度上降低了年轻人的饮酒量、死亡率、伤害和犯罪率。由于美国未成年人饮酒率仍然处于惊人的高水平，我们的研究结果将对限制青少年饮酒的公共卫生政策的设计产生重要影响。通过这样做，该项目将有可能减少青少年遭受的与酒精相关的伤害。