Impaired driving enforcement practices among state and local law enforcement agencies in the United States

Quantitative tools and measurements for assessing the implementation of regulatory policies in reducing alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harms: A scoping review

ISSUES

Implementation of alcohol control policy is a global priority as alcohol contributes to negative individual health and societal impacts. However, there are no available reviews that comprehensively provide tools and measurements for assessing the implementation of alcohol control policy. This study reviews tools and measurements for assessing alcohol policy implementation. Policies considered include alcohol pricing and taxation, alcohol marketing control, physical availability control and drink-driving policy.

APPROACH

We conducted a scoping review from Scopus, Web of Science and the World Health Organization's website. We included studies on policy implementation for the four most effective prevention policies published worldwide between 2000 and 2021.

KEY FINDINGS

The search yielded 11,654 articles and these were narrowed down to 39 included studies. Of these 39 studies, almost half assessed the implementation of a drink-driving policy (n = 19), followed multipolicy (n = 12) and physical availability control (n = 8). There was no single study assessing policy implementation of pricing and taxation or alcohol marketing control. The majority of the studies were conducted in high-income countries (n = 31). Globally, there is no standardised tool or guidelines for measuring the policy implementation of these four policies. The tools for measuring policy implementation mostly focused on a single policy, and few covered multiple policies.

IMPLICATIONS

We recommend developing standardised tools and measurements to monitor policy implementation across multiple policies at country levels.

CONCLUSION

This review highlighted a lack of comprehensive and standardised tools to assess policy implementation and the limited number of studies on alcohol policy implementation in low- and middle-income countries.

Barriers and Facilitators to the Implementation of Effective Alcohol Control Policies: A Scoping Review

Implementation of effective alcohol control policies is a global priority. However, at the global and national levels, implementing effective policies is still challenging, as it requires commitment from multiple stakeholders. This review provides a synthesis of barriers and facilitators to implementing effective alcohol control policies. We conducted a scoping review from two main databases: Scopus and Web of Science, and the grey literature from the World Health Organization's website. We included any studies investigating barriers and facilitators to implementing four effective policies: Alcohol pricing and taxation, control of physical availability, alcohol marketing control, and drink-driving policy. Articles published between 2000 and 2021 were included. The search yielded 11,651 articles, which were reduced to 21 after the assessment of eligibility criteria. We found five main barriers: resource constraint; legal loopholes; lack of evidence to support policy implementation, particularly local evidence; low priority of policy implementation among responsible agencies; and insufficient skills of implementers. Facilitators, which were scarce, included establishing monitoring systems and local evidence to support policy implementation and early engagement of implementing agencies and communities. We recommend that national governments pay more attention to potential barriers and facilitators while designing alcohol control regulations and implementing effective policies.