Was the STAD programme really that successful?

Abstract

Aim A community intervention programme STAD was launched in Stockholm in January 1998, which included training in responsible beverage service and stricter enforcement of existing alcohol laws. An evaluation suggested that during the first 33 months of the programme, the level of police-recorded violence dropped by a striking 29%. We propose to probe the robustness of this estimate, which is often cited as evidence of the effectiveness of these kinds of intervention. In this paper, we reanalyse the underlying data by applying alternative model specifications. Data and Methods We reanalysed the original data on police-recorded violence from January 1994 to September 2000 by autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) modelling. We estimated models based on raw data and seasonally differenced data; we also varied the definition of control area and applied the statistical technique of difference-in-differences modelling. Results The estimated intervention effects from these model specifications were all strongly significant statistically, ranging between 21% and 32%. Conclusion Estimates based on a variety of model specifications were generally somewhat lower than those previously reported. However, the new estimates were all strongly statistically significant and fairly uniform with regard to effect size, which suggests that the findings of a substantial impact of the STAD programme are indeed quite robust.

Reducing youth violence related to student parties: Findings from a community intervention project in Stockholm

“…However, evaluations of other kinds of multi-component programs have found evidence of reductions both in violence [13] and in heavy drinking among young people [14]. For instance, depending on which statistical model was applied, night-time violent crime was found to have been reduced by between 21% and 32% in the evaluations of another multi-component Responsible Beverage Service (RBS) program launched in Stockholm between 1998 and 2001 [6,7].Thus, although the interventions and the target groups were different, our result is within the range of effects found for similar programs in Stockholm.…”

“…One example is the STAD program in Stockholm, Sweden, which focused on community mobilisation, training in responsible beverage service as well as on stricter enforcement of existing alcohol laws. Evaluations of this program have found significant reductions in night-time violent crime [6][7][8]. Another example is the safety action program in Queensland, Australia, which targeted the environment of licensed venues, including drinking regulations as well as the social and physical environments.…”

If it works there, will it work here? The effect of a multi-component responsible beverage service (RBS) programme on violence in Oslo

“…Recent re-analysis of the original data set, using more robust statistical methods and additional comparison areas, revealed smaller effects, but essentially confirmed the results (Norström and Trolldal, 2013). According to Wallin et al (2003), the effect on violence may be transmitted by a reduction in overserving, which they found to be drastically reduced.…”

“…Most importantly, the implicit assumption is that the areas follow a common trend so that the development in the control areas represents what would have happened in the treatment area. The control areas for SALUTT was chosen as assumed similar areas nearby, in a similar rationale as in the evaluation of STAD (Norström and Trolldal, 2013).…”

“…We use autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models in a similar way as in the prior studies of STAD (Norström and Trolldal, 2013;Wallin et al, 2003). The models is denoted ARIMA (p,d,q) where p is the order of autoregressive model, d is the degree of differencing, and q is the order of the moving average model.…”