Premium
Methodological Prospects with the Use of Geographic Information Systems and Spatial Statistics for the Evaluation of Alcohol Policy
Author(s) -
Curtin Kevin,
Pawloski Lisa
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
world medical and health policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.326
H-Index - 11
ISSN - 1948-4682
DOI - 10.1002/wmh3.102
Subject(s) - descriptive statistics , health geography , geographic information system , spatial analysis , spatial ecology , public health , environmental health , data science , official statistics , field (mathematics) , health policy , psychology , public economics , risk analysis (engineering) , computer science , medicine , statistics , geography , international health , economics , mathematics , cartography , ecology , nursing , pure mathematics , biology
There has been increasing recognition that there is a fundamental spatial component to most social phenomena, including health‐related behaviors and outcomes. Health geographics has begun to develop as a significant sub‐discipline within geography, and is strongly influenced by both spatial statistics and medical science. The goal of this field is to increase understanding of the spatial processes underlying health patterns, and thereby contribute to policies for encouraging healthy behavior, and mitigating both individual and public health risks. Unfortunately, the potential contributions to alcohol policy have yet to be comprehensively integrated into health geographics. This article presents a review of potential methodological contributions to alcohol policy by demonstrating the use of geographic information systems techniques and spatial statistics on a dataset comprised of alcohol‐related arrest information. A wide range of outcomes are illustrated, from descriptive spatial statistics of alcohol‐related behavior, to correlative analyses between sources of alcohol and alcohol arrests, and including inferential analyses regarding factors influencing alcohol‐related outcomes. All of these are accompanied by suggestions regarding how policymakers can use the results in developing new policy responses or refining existing ones. Suggestions for the future directions of spatially informed alcohol policy are provided.