Impact of the New Zealand Minimum Drinking Age on Context Specific Drinking Risks

描述（由申请人提供）：提高最低法定饮酒年龄（MLDA）已被证明可以减少美国年轻人的酒精使用和相关问题。作为一项政策工具，禁毒法有效，易于实施和执行，尽管未成年人仍可通过其他途径获得酒精，但总体上对社会有益。然而，在美国和其他国家，要求降低债务上限的经济和政治压力很大。这些压力导致新西兰最近降低了最低购买年龄（MPA）。支持这一变化的一个论点是，较高的mpa会导致未成年人在缺乏社会控制的环境中过度饮酒。据推测，较低的MPAs使年轻人能够在社会控制的、更安全的饮酒环境中饮酒（例如，酒吧和餐馆）。这一论点的有效性是通过一个特定环境饮酒风险的数学模型和1999年新西兰将MPA从20岁降至18岁前后在新西兰进行的反复酒精调查的独特来源来检验的。重要的是，由于较低的MPA的主要影响是扩大年轻人饮酒的环境，较低的MPA可能会影响饮酒风险，而不依赖于饮酒水平。模型、数据和建议的统计分析将使我们能够：(1)测量MPA降低对未成年青年、成年青年和成年饮酒者饮酒环境选择的影响；(2)评估与这些环境相关的风险对这些环境中饮酒水平的反应程度（特定环境剂量反应）；(3)估计MPA降低对酒精问题的累积影响及其在新西兰青年和成人饮酒环境中的分布。(4)考察MPA变化后土著居民特定环境的饮酒风险。将就降低MPA对新西兰一般人口和土著群体的饮酒模式和问题的预期影响检验八项具体假设。该项目的短期目标是评估降低MPA对青少年饮酒的影响以及新西兰酒精问题的具体情况风险。实现这一目标的公共卫生意义在于开发和应用衡量这些风险的新方法。由于该研究将使用来自外国但可比较的英语国家的数据进行，因此研究结果将在一定范围内推广到美国人口。这项研究将大大有助于制订适当的数量框架，以评估减少多边发展援助的影响。因此，这项研究的长期目标和公共卫生意义将是为今后评估MLDA法律变化的影响奠定科学基础。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Increases in the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) have been shown to reduce alcohol use and related problems among young people in the US. As a policy tool, MLDA laws are effective, easy to implement and enforce and, although underage youth can still obtain alcohol through other means, generally beneficial to society. Nevertheless, economic and political pressures to lower MLDAs are strong in the US and other countries. These pressures have led to a recent decrease in the minimum purchase age (MPA) in New Zealand. One argument in support of this change is that higher MPAs lead underage youth to drink excessively in environments with little social control. Presumably lower MPAs enable young people to drink in socially controlled, safer, drinking environments (e.g., bars and restaurants). The validity of this argument is tested using a mathematical model of context specific drinking risks and a unique source of repeated alcohol surveys conducted in New Zealand before and after a reduction in the MPA in 1999 from 20 to 18 years of age. Importantly, since the primary impact of a lower MPA is to broaden the contexts in which young people can drink, the lower MPA may affect drinking risks independent of drinking levels. The model, data, and proposed statistical analyses will enable us to: (1) Measure the impacts of lowered MPA on selection of drinking contexts among underage youth, of-age youth, and adult drinkers, (2) Assess the extent to which risks related to those contexts are responsive to drinking levels in those contexts (context specific dose-response), (3) Estimate the cumulative impact of the lowered MPA on alcohol problems and their distribution across drinking contexts among youth and adults in New Zealand, (4) Examine context specific drinking risks among indigenous populations after the MPA change. Eight specific hypotheses will be tested with regard to expected impacts of the lowered MPA on drinking patterns and problems in the general population and indigenous groups in New Zealand. The short-term goal of the project is to assess the impacts of the lowered MPA upon youth drinking and context specific risks for alcohol problems in New Zealand. The public health significance of achieving this goal will be the development and application of new methods for the measurement of these risks. Since the research will be conducted using data from a foreign but comparable English-speaking country, the results of the study will generalize, within limits, to populations in the US. The research will contribute substantively to the formulation of adequate quantitative frameworks with which to assess the impacts of reductions in MLDAs. Thus, the long-term goal and public health significance of this study will be to advance the scientific foundations upon which future evaluations of the impacts of changes in MLDA laws can be based. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The argument that reductions in the minimum legal purchase age (MPA) for alcohol will reduce drinking problems among young people will be tested using quantitative models developed by the Principal Investigator and unique survey data available from New Zealand for years before and after a recent reduction in the MPA from 20 to 18. This research will measure impacts of the MPA on selection of drinking contexts, assess risks related to drinking in these contexts, estimate cumulative impacts of the MPA change on alcohol problems, and examine risks among indigenous populations after the MPA change. The research will contribute substantively to the formulation of adequate quantitative frameworks with which to assess the impacts of reductions in MLDAs.