title: Do community interventions targeting licensed venues reduce alcohol-related emergency department presentations?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Excessive alcohol consumption is related to substantial health and social order costs. Many of the harms have been identified as coming from licensed venues. Most communities struggle to find interventions that are effective, particularly in an environment of little federal government action. Furthermore, most interventions are based on little or no empirical evidence. This study aims to investigate the effect of a suite of interventions on emergency department (ED) attendances in Geelong, Australia.
  
  
  METHODS
  This paper reports stage one findings from the Dealing with Alcohol-Related Problems in the Night-time Economy project (DANTE) and specifically examines all alcohol-related injury frequencies before to after intervention in the City of Greater Geelong of Victoria, Australia, from 2005 to 2009. Auto-regressive integrated moving average time-series were used to determine the effect of the interventions on ED attendances in Geelong.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There were 3934 triage presentations involving alcohol. Over two-thirds (68.9%) of triage presentations were male and over half (58.5%) of alcohol-related attendances occurred on the weekend. The time-series analyses indicated that ID scanners (z = 2.66, P < 0.001) and the Just Think awareness campaign (z = 4.21, P < 0.001) were significant predictors of increases in alcohol-related injury presentation rates to the ED.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Overall, the community interventions implemented have not been associated with reduced alcohol-related attendances at the ED. The findings raise questions about whether targeting the night-time economy is effective and whether interventions should instead be targeted at reducing whole-of-community alcohol consumption.
authors: Deakin University, School of Psychology, Geelong, Australia. petermiller.mail@gmail.com
authors: Peter
authors: P
authors: Miller
authors: Anders
authors: A
authors: Sønderlund
authors: Kerri
authors: K
authors: Coomber
authors: Darren
authors: D
authors: Palmer
authors: Karen
authors: K
authors: Gillham
authors: Jennifer
authors: J
authors: Tindall
authors: John
authors: J
authors: Wiggers
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000517:prevention & control*; D019973:Alcohol-Related Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D001315:Australia / Q000453:epidemiology; D002648:Child; D003132:Commerce / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015233:Models, Statistical; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult