Impact of the 1994 Alcohol Production and Sales Deregulation Policy on Traffic Crashes and Fatalities in Japan

Introduction. Many studies have demonstrated a strong relationship between alcohol availability and traffic crashes involving alcohol-impaired drivers. The present analysis focuses on the evaluation of the impact of alcohol availability on the Japanese population by comparing fatal and nonfatal moto...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Asia-Pacific journal of public health Vol. 24; no. 5; pp. 776 - 785
Main Authors:	Desapriya, Ediriweera, Fujiwara, Takeo, Dutt, Namrata, Arason, Neil, Pike, Ian
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01-09-2012
Subjects:	Accidents Accidents, Traffic - mortality Accidents, Traffic - statistics & numerical data Alcohol Alcoholic Beverages - statistics & numerical data Commerce - legislation & jurisprudence Compliance Databases, Factual Deregulation Government Regulation Humans Japan - epidemiology Legislation Mortality Review Articles Time Factors Traffic Traffic safety Unemployment Japan alcohol availability alcohol production and sales regulations crashes 24-hours operated convenience stores liquor discount stores traffic fatalities
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Summary:	Introduction. Many studies have demonstrated a strong relationship between alcohol availability and traffic crashes involving alcohol-impaired drivers. The present analysis focuses on the evaluation of the impact of alcohol availability on the Japanese population by comparing fatal and nonfatal motor vehicle crash rates before and after implementation of the alcohol deregulation policy in 1994. Participants and method. Poisson regression with robust standard error was used to model the before-to-after change in incidence rate ratios (IRRs) in the population. To control for potential confounders, per capita alcohol consumption, unemployment rate, and vehicle miles travelled (VMT) were also added to the model. The exponents of the fitted coefficients are equivalent to the IRRs. Results. Implementation of the policy deregulating alcohol sales and production did not appear to increase traffic fatalities and other traffic crashes in Japan. In the overall study results, nighttime fatalities were reduced statistically significantly by 6% since the implementation of the alcohol deregulation policy in 1994. Discussion. Contrary to previous research, the findings of this study demonstrated lower rates of fatalities and higher compliance with alcohol-related driving legislation. Further well-designed, nonaligned studies on alcohol availability and traffic fatalities in other countries are urgently needed.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 ObjectType-Article-2 ObjectType-Feature-1
ISSN:	1010-5395 1941-2479
DOI:	10.1177/1010539511404398