Analyzing the Effect of Selected Control Policy Measures and SocioDemographic Factors on Alcoholic Beverage Consumption in Europe within the AMPHORA Project: Statistical Methods

Abstract

This paper describes the methods used to investigate variations in total alcoholic beverage consumption as related to selected control intervention policies and other socioeconomic factors (unplanned factors) within 12 European countries involved in the AMPHORA project. The analysis presented several critical points: presence of missing values, strong correlation among the unplanned factors, long-term waves or trends in both the time series of alcohol consumption and the time series of the main explanatory variables. These difficulties were addressed by implementing a multiple imputation procedure for filling in missing values, then specifying for each country a multiple regression model which accounted for time trend, policy measures and a limited set of unplanned factors, selected in advance on the basis of sociological and statistical considerations are addressed. This approach allowed estimating the "net" effect of the selected control policies on alcohol consumption, but not the association between each unplanned factor and the outcome.

Italy Between Drinking Culture and Control Policies for Alcoholic Beverages

“…All of the planned statistical analyses were separately performed on each of the 5 imputed datasets, and the 5 results combined according to the procedure described elsewhere (AMPHORA, 2013, Part 1, the study; Baccini & Carreras, 2014).…”

“…Three of the aforementioned seven socio-demographic and economic variables-income, alcohol prices of wine and beer and males over 65 in the population-after a logarithmic transformation, were taken into account in a core model that was specified for the logarithmic transformation of the pro capita total alcoholic beverage consumption, and to which a time trend was added. The other four variables-i.e., female employment, female education, mothers' age at all childbirths, and urban level-again after a logarithmic transformation, were inserted into the core model one at a time, and the best of the resulting four models was identified by means of Akaike information criterion (AIC, that is a measure of the relative quality of a statistical model) (Baccini & Carreras, 2014).…”

“…A linear regression was used with a time trend among the variables (see AM-PHORA WP3, 2013, Part 1, Methods for country-specific analysis, consumption; Baccini & Carreras, 2014). Three of the aforementioned seven socio-demographic and economic variables-income, alcohol prices of wine and beer and males over 65 in the population-after a logarithmic transformation, were taken into account in a core model that was specified for the logarithmic transformation of the pro capita total alcoholic beverage consumption, and to which a time trend was added.…”

Trends in Consumption of Alcoholic Beverages and Policy Interventions in Europe: An Uncertainty “Associated” Perspective

“…Ultimately, we examined whether the introduction of an alcoholic beverage control policy measure was associated with a change in the direction of the consumption trend, or with a continuation of the on-going trend, or was not associated with any change. In another part of the study, a quantitative analysis of the relationship between policies and consumption was carried out (see Baccini & Carreras, 2014;Buscema, Massini, & Maurelli, 2014).…”

“…Also the six country main alcoholic beverage control policy measures selected in the AMPHORA study, in agreement with the local experts (even if consensualizing a binary static process and anticipated outcome raises numerous issues for effective interventions) were used (see AMPHORA, 2013;Baccini & Carreras, 2014); such measures were also considered for their quality to be permissive or restrictive. Ultimately, we examined whether the introduction of an alcoholic beverage control policy measure was associated with a change in the direction of the consumption trend, or with a continuation of the on-going trend, or was not associated with any change.…”