A Study of the Alcohol Policy Development Process in the United States: Theory, Goals, and Methods

Abstract

The project identified factors influencing U.S. federal alcohol policy formation and especially the role of research. It explored the applicability of John Kingdon's “Policy Stream” model involving three interacting policy streams: problem recognition, policy alternatives, and politics. Each stream is necessary but insufficient for policy formation, and coupling streams in “windows of opportunity” is a key to moving legislation. Federal alcohol-policy cases studied included excise taxes, alcohol promotion policies, federal agency reauthorization, and federally mandated health warnings. Data sources included key-informant interviewing with snowball sampling and archival data. We qualitatively analyzed government documents, scientific journals, print and electronic media, trade magazines, and newsletters. Sixty-four in-depth interviews were completed with public health activists, alcohol industry representatives, researchers, journalists, and people in executive and legislative branches of the government. We summarize methods used and challenges overcome, and provides an overview of the project's activities, with results detailed elsewhere in this special issue.

Alcohol industry involvement in policymaking: a systematic review

“…The focus on policymaking means that our findings in relation to framing, for example, omit studies of framing activities within the media, public relations or research rather than in policy per se [46][47][48]. Also omitted are studies of the policy process lacking specific intent to study industry actors or presenting required data [11,49,50]. A further limitation of this review is that we did not undertake a formal risk of bias assessment of the included studies.…”

Alcohol policy in South Africa: a review of policy development processes between 1994 and 2009

“…There are numerous resources to draw upon in developing such a strategy [3][4][5]; however, the intention of this new thrust is to move beyond strategy development and encourage countries to have alcohol policies approved and implemented. As has been made clear from several publications, focusing upon the alcohol policy process in North America, Europe and Australia [6][7][8], this is a substantially more difficult process.…”

Kingdon's “Streams” Model at Thirty: Still Relevant in the 21st Century?

“…Some studies employed snowball sampling (Greenfield et al . ) for interviewing informants. Nevertheless, for a majority of the research, the external validity aspect may be critiqued, especially in the instance of single case studies.…”

“…Some other studies (see e.g., Kubiak, Sobek, and Rose 2005;Rios and Meyer 2006) used quantitative data along with qualitative data in their studies. Some studies employed snowball sampling (Greenfield et al 2004) for interviewing informants. Nevertheless, for a majority of the research, the external validity aspect may be critiqued, especially in the instance of single case studies.…”