William Alex Pridemore1, Aleksandra J Snowden. 1. Indiana University, Department of Criminal Justice, 302 Sycamore Hall, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA. wpridemo@indiana.edu
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: We assessed the impact on suicide mortality of a new national policy in Slovenia that limits the availability of alcohol. METHODS: We obtained monthly total, male, and female suicide counts in Slovenia between January 1997 and December 2005 and then employed autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) techniques to model the effect of the alcohol policy (implemented in March 2003). RESULTS: There was a significant decrease in the total number of monthly suicides following the policy's implementation. Subsequent analyses revealed this association to be caused solely by the impact on male suicides. Specifically, there was an immediate and permanent reduction of 3.6 male suicides per month (95% confidence interval = -0.4, -6.9), or approximately 10% of the preintervention average. The policy had no statistically significant effect on female suicides. CONCLUSIONS: Our results show the effectiveness of this specific policy in reducing male suicides in Slovenia and also hint at the potential of public policy in reducing the public health burden of alcohol-related harm more generally.
OBJECTIVES: We assessed the impact on suicide mortality of a new national policy in Slovenia that limits the availability of alcohol. METHODS: We obtained monthly total, male, and female suicide counts in Slovenia between January 1997 and December 2005 and then employed autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) techniques to model the effect of the alcohol policy (implemented in March 2003). RESULTS: There was a significant decrease in the total number of monthly suicides following the policy's implementation. Subsequent analyses revealed this association to be caused solely by the impact on male suicides. Specifically, there was an immediate and permanent reduction of 3.6 male suicides per month (95% confidence interval = -0.4, -6.9), or approximately 10% of the preintervention average. The policy had no statistically significant effect on female suicides. CONCLUSIONS: Our results show the effectiveness of this specific policy in reducing male suicides in Slovenia and also hint at the potential of public policy in reducing the public health burden of alcohol-related harm more generally.
Authors: Hualiang Lin; Liuqing Yang; Qiyong Liu; Tong Wang; Sarah R Hossain; Suzanne C Ho; Linwei Tian Journal: Int J Public Health Date: 2011-02-10 Impact factor: 3.380
Authors: Alvaro I Sánchez; Andrés Villaveces; Robert T Krafty; Taeyoung Park; Harold B Weiss; Anthony Fabio; Juan Carlos Puyana; María I Gutiérrez Journal: Int J Epidemiol Date: 2011-03-30 Impact factor: 7.196
Authors: Kenneth R Conner; Nathalie Huguet; Raul Caetano; Norman Giesbrecht; Bentson H McFarland; Kurt B Nolte; Mark S Kaplan Journal: Am J Public Health Date: 2013-05-16 Impact factor: 9.308
Authors: Ziming Xuan; Timothy S Naimi; Mark S Kaplan; Courtney L Bagge; Lauren R Few; Stephen Maisto; Richard Saitz; Robert Freeman Journal: Alcohol Clin Exp Res Date: 2016-09-12 Impact factor: 3.455