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Abstract
Background Alcohol misuse is a major public health issue. Understanding factors that contribute to alcohol misuse or risky drinking behaviour is important for policy. This study examined if crime rates in the neighbourhood (postcode) where a person lives influences their likelihood of engaging in risky drinking behaviour. We further explored social capital and mental health as channels through which neighbourhood crime influences risky drinking behaviour.
Methods Using 18 waves of household longitudinal data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey for the period 2002 to 2019 merged with official police statistics on neighbourhood crime rates, we adopted fixed-effect regression models that allow us to address concerns relating to endogenous sorting of participants as well as omitted variable bias.
Results We find that an increase in neighbourhood crime is associated with an increase in the likelihood of risky drinking (OR=1.107, 95% CI 1.073 to 1.120), alcohol expenditure (b=0.063, 95% CI 0.041 to 0.076), alcohol consumption frequency (b=0.071, 95% CI 0.055 to 0.083) and quantity (b=0.046, 95% CI 0.032 to 0.052). We present exploratory evidence that social capital and mental health mediate the relationship between neighbourhood crime and alcohol use. Specifically, our results suggest that by eroding the level of trust and decreasing mental health, neighbourhood crime tends to increase the probability that people engage in risky alcohol behaviour.
Conclusion Our findings suggest that targeting crime and in particular the channels through which crime influences risky alcohol behaviour (ie, trust and mental health) can be instrumental in addressing alcohol misuse.
- ALCOHOLISM
- SOCIAL CAPITAL
- MENTAL HEALTH
Data availability statement
Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available. The HILDA dataset can be accessed by following the instructions available here: https://melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/hilda/for-data-users.
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Data availability statement
Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available. The HILDA dataset can be accessed by following the instructions available here: https://melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/hilda/for-data-users.
Footnotes
Contributors REAC: conceptualisation, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing. IK: methodology, formal analysis, writing—original draft. SAC: methodology, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing. SAC is the guarantor.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer-reviewed.
Author note This paper uses unit record data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. The HILDA Project was initiated and is funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services (DSS) and is managed by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research (Melbourne Institute). We are grateful to the state governments and police force of Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia and Northern Territory for providing us access with the local area crime data. The findings and views reported in this paper are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the DSS, the Melbourne Institute, the relevant police force or state or territory governments.
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