Document Type

Marquette Only

Publication Date

5-2009

Publisher

American Public Health Association

Source Publication

American Journal of Public Health

Source ISSN

0090-0036

Original Item ID

DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2008.146183

Abstract

Objectives

We assessed the impact on suicide mortality of a new national policy in Slovenia that limits the availability of alcohol.

Methods

We obtained monthly total, male, and female suicide counts in Slovenia between January 1997 and December 2005 and then employed autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) techniques to model the effect of the alcohol policy (implemented in March 2003).

Results

There was a significant decrease in the total number of monthly suicides following the policy's implementation. Subsequent analyses revealed this association to be caused solely by the impact on male suicides. Specifically, there was an immediate and permanent reduction of 3.6 male suicides per month (95% confidence interval =-0.4,-6.9), or approximately 10% of the preintervention average. The policy had no statistically significant effect on female suicides.

Conclusions

Our results show the effectiveness of this specific policy in reducing male suicides in Slovenia and also hint at the potential of public policy in reducing the public health burden of alcohol-related harm more generally.

Comments

Accepted version. American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 99, No. 5 (May 2009): 915-920. DOI. © American Public Health Association. Used with permission.

Aleksandra J. Snowden was affiliated with Indiana University at the time of publication.

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