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

大量的研究已经确定，过量饮酒与许多不良的健康和社会后果之间存在很强的关联，但很少有证据表明这种相关性的比例是因果关系。这个项目将通过利用一个人在21岁时获得酒精的机会离散增加的事实来估计酒精消费对逮捕、住院和死亡概率的影响 美国的最低法律的饮酒年龄。这一制度特征允许使用回归不连续设计（RDD）来获得饮酒对不良结局发生率影响的无偏估计。RDD方法利用了感兴趣的治疗在某个预定阈值上不连续变化的情况（例如，在21岁时酒精可用性的不连续变化）。在这种情况下，对阈值两侧的个体进行比较将产生治疗对结果的真实影响的无偏估计，因为除了感兴趣的治疗外，所有其他变量都将平稳地跨越不连续性。这项研究将实施一系列RDD分析，使用调查和机密的行政数据对酒精消费，逮捕，住院和死亡，以确定减少形式的因果关系的最低饮酒年龄法律对酒精消费及其不良后果。第一步是记录21岁时饮酒的频率和强度如何变化。下一步将是确定哪种类型的伤害、死亡原因和犯罪类型导致不良事件的突然增加，以及这种情况如何因种族和民族而异。结合简化形式的估计将给出减少酒精消费的回报的隐含工具变量估计。这一研究项目的总体目标是提供减少酒精消费的回报估计数，供决策者在考虑旨在减少酒精消费不利影响的政策时使用。可靠的研究设计和研究重点是青年饮酒的广泛不利影响的事实意味着它非常适合实现这一重要目标。 相关性本研究项目将评估美国最低法律的饮酒年龄在多大程度上减少了年轻人的酒精消费、死亡率、伤害和犯罪。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公共卫生政策的设计产生重要影响，这些政策将限制青少年的酒精供应。通过这样做，该项目将有可能减少青少年所经历的与酒精有关的伤害。

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.