1. ALCOHOL AND ASSAULT: A COMPARATIVE TIME SERIES ANALYSIS ROBERT NASH PARKER ANN HOPE NORMAN GIESBRECHT

2. FIRST EXAMPLE OF NEW INTERNATIONAL COMPARATIVE PROJECT ASSAULT AND ALCOHOL –ASSAULT MAJOR SOCIAL PROBLEM –LITERATURE IN CRIMINOLOGY NOT EXTENSIVE –IMPACT OF ALCOHOL MAY LEAD TO POLICY IMPLICATIONS –GREATER POTENTIAL FOR HARM REDUCTION

3. DESIGN OF THIS PAPER THREE COUNTRY COMPARATIVE TIME SERIES ANALYSIS CHARACTERISTICS: –LONG TIME SERIES (1950-2006) –ALCOHOL AS TOTAL PURE LITERS PER CAPITA –ALL CRIMINAL ASSAULTS EXCLUDING SEXUAL ASSAULT

4. USA, IRELAND, CANADA

5. ALCOHOL AND ASSAULT CANADA

6. ALCOHOL AND ASSAULT USA

7. METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH CONCEPTUAL APPROACH –SIGNAL TO NOISE –USED IN DOZENS OF SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINES: ELCTRONICS, ASTRONOMY, ENGINEERING, PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY ARIMA MODELS –IDENTIFCATION PHASE IDENTIFY THE NOISE COMPONENTS

8. METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH (CONT) AR: SHORT TERM WEIGHTED EFFECTS AT LAG X I: SIMPLE UNWEIGHTED EFFECT AT LAG X MA: WEIGHTED AVERAGES OF CURRENT AND LAG(S) UP TO AND INCLUDING X

9. EXAMPLE: IRELAND AUTOCORRELATION FUNCTION AND PARTIAL AUTOCORRELATION FUNCTION USED TO IDENTIFY COMPONENTS IDENTIFY TENTATIVELY A TYPE AT A LAG X, MODEL, RE-TEST WITH ACF AND PACF ITERATIVE PROCESS

10. ACF AND PACF FOR IRISH TOTAL ALCOHOL

11. ACF AND PACF IRISH ASSAULT RATE

12. ARIMA (0,1,0) IRISH ALCOHOL

13. ARIMA (1,1,0) IRISH ASSAULTS

14. MODEL FOR ASSAULTS PREDICTED BY ALCOHOL IN IRELAND 1950-2006 RESULTS: –AR(1) = -0.40 (3.13**) –Alcohol =.272 (4.02**) For US: significant impact of Beer on assaults; null results for Canada

15. DISCUSSION What have we learned from comparative method? Despite Canada’s high assault, preliminary analysis finds no link to alcohol While total consumption per capita predicted assaults in Ireland, only beer seemed significant in the US Two of three countries show alcohol and assault relationship

16. CONCLUSION International Project on Alcohol and Assault shows promise Potential for large scale harm reduction from reducing alcohol consumption and thus reducing significantly the assault rate Please join us in this project: email robnp@aol.com to be added to the list and receive in the next month or so a first attempt to survey alcohol and assault time series data availability across the world