Perceived Neighbourhood Disorder, Alcohol Consumption and Alcohol-Related Problems in Chile

Abstract

Background: Alcohol misuse is one of the most important preventable public health risk factors. Empirical research shows that alcohol misuse is related to social and economic losses. Both theoretical and empirical evidence suggests that neighborhood disorder impacts alcohol-related behavior. However, there is limited literature in the context of developing countries. Objectives: The aim of this research is to estimate the association between perceived neighborhood disorder and (1) alcohol-related behavior and (2) alcohol-related problems in the context of the Chilean population. Our contribution focuses on the examination of the perception of disorder in urban neighborhoods and alcohol use patterns in a wide age range and sample of Chilean cities. Results: High levels of neighbor disorder perception are associated with higher levels of drinking and hazardous alcohol use. In addition, perceived neighborhood disorder is directly associated with probability of alcohol-related problems (ranging from 2% to 11%). Conclusions/Importance: The results are consistent with empirical and theoretical frameworks. This research could be used to better guide place-based policies in emerging countries with high levels of alcohol consumption to prevent alcohol risk behaviors and alcohol-related problems.

Keywords:

• Perceived neighborhood disorder
• alcohol consumption
• alcohol-related behavior
• alcohol-related problems
• health risk behavior
• ecometrics

Acknowledgments

The author expresses gratitude to two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. This research used information from the National Drug Studies. Special thanks are extended to the National Service for the Prevention and Rehabilitation of Drug and Alcohol Consumption (SENDA), administratively under the Ministry of the Interior and Public Security of Chile, for providing access to the database. It is crucial to clarify that all findings derived from this study or research are solely the responsibility of the author and do not implicate or bind the aforementioned institution in any manner.

Notes

1 The broken window theory was developed by Wilson and Kelling (1982) to understand the criminal activity in neighbourhoods with broken social control, but it has been recently applied to health fields. For more detail, see O’Brien et al. (2019).

2 Early deaths and deaths associated with disability.

3 The administrative division of Chile are comprised, in descending order, by 16 regions, 56 provinces and 346 municipalities.

4 In our study, “at each time” refers to the days and hours over the reference period for HAU and BD, respectively.

5 Law 21,363 establishes that the minimum legal drinking age is 18 years.

6 In 2017, the monthly median Chilean household income is 821,000 CLP (roughly 1000 USD). The monthly Chilean household income at the percentiles 25 and 75 are 530,000 CLP and 1,316,539 CLP, respectively.

7 The neighborhood quality is a valuation of physical infrastructure made by the interviewer.

8 The number of imputations greater than five recommended by Schafer (1997) usually results in unbiased estimators.

9 Variables included in the MICE are variables of Table 1 that have missing values.

10 Distribution curves of imputed values and complete cases exhibited high overlap.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.