Impact of Alcohol Tax Increase on Maryland College Students' Alcohol-Related Outcomes

ABSTRACT

Objective: This study A) assessed whether levels of alcohol-related disciplinary actions on college campuses changed among MD college students after the 2011 Maryland (MD) state alcohol tax increase from 6% to 9%, and B) determined which school-level factors impacted the magnitude of changes detected. Method: A quasi-experimental interrupted time series (ITS) analysis of panel data containing alcohol-related disciplinary actions on 33 MD college campuses in years 2006–2013. Negative binomial regression models were used to examine whether there was a statistically significant difference in counts of alcohol-related disciplinary actions comparing time before and after the tax increase. Results: The ITS anaysis showed an insignificant relationship between alcohol-related disciplinary actions and tax implementation (β = −.27; p =.257) but indicated that alcohol-related disciplinary actions decreased significantly over the time under study (β = −.05; p =.022). Discussion: Alcohol related disciplinary actions did decrease over time in the years of study, and this relationship was correlated with several school-level characteristics, including school price, school funding type, types of degrees awarded, and specialty. School price may serve as a proxy mediator or confounder of the effect of time on disciplinary actions.

KEYWORDS:

• Tax
• alcohol
• college
• campus
• students
• disciplinary action

Declaration of interest

‘The Authors declare that there is no conflict of interest’.

Acknowledgments

Alcohol and Other Drug-related outcome data were obtained from the United States Department of Education Office of Postsecondary Education “Campus Safety and Security Data Analysis Cutting Tool” website. School characteristics data were obtained from the National Center for Education Statistics “College Navigator” Website.