Retail Alcohol Outlets

Alcohol contributes to around 5% of all deaths around the world every year. Our research considers how the retail outlets that sell alcohol affect their local communities.

Retail alcohol outlets—including bars, restaurants, and liquor stores—are legal businesses that operate in a highly competitive and highly regulated marketplace. The intense competition and regulation have important impacts on who can purchase alcohol, where they can purchase alcohol, and how they consume alcohol after making a purchase. All of this matters for public health, because alcohol has immense public health impacts around the world. Our research demonstrates that retail alcohol outlets concentrate in lower income areas, that children and adults who are exposed to retail alcohol outlets tend to consume more alcohol, and that outlets contribute to greater incidence of harm. Regulating retail alcohol outlets is an essential environmental strategy to improve public health and reduce inequities.

  1. Mehranbod CA, Gobaud AN, Bushover BR, Morrison CN. Individuals' travel to alcohol outlets: The fallacy of the local bar. Drug and Alcohol Review. 2024; 43(3): 799–809.

  2. Bushover BR, Mehranbod CA, Gobaud AN, Branas CC, Chen Q, Giovenco DP, Humphreys DK, Morrison CN. Self-report survey measures of alcohol-impaired driving: A systematic review. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 2023; 84(5): 781-790.

  3. Morrison CN. Commentary on Gruenewald et al.: “Even One More License May Be ‘Too Many’"? Addiction, 2022; 117(10):2623-2624.

  4. Trangenstein P, Sadler R, Morrison CN, Jernigan D. Looking back and moving forward: The evolution and potential opportunities for the future of alcohol outlet density measurement. Addiction: Research and Theory, 2021, 29(2):117-128.

  5. Lipton R, Banerjee A, Ponicki WR, Gruenewald PJ, Morrison CN. Impacts of confounding roadway characteristics on estimates of associations between alcohol outlet densities and alcohol related motor vehicle crashes. Drug and Alcohol Review, 2021, 40(2):239-246.

  6. Nesoff E, Milam AJ, Morrison C, Weir BW, Branas CC, Furr-Holden DM, Knowlton AR, Martins SS. Alcohol outlets, drug paraphernalia sales, and neighborhood drug overdose. International Journal on Drug Policy, 2021, 95:103289.

  7. Mair CF, Frankeberger J, Gruenewald PJ, Morrison CN, Freisthler B. Space and place in alcohol research. Current Epidemiology Reports, 2019, 6(4): 412-422.

  8. Cook M, Livingston M, Wilkinson C, Shantosh J, Morrison CN. Alcohol industry vs. public health presentations at judicial reviews of liquor licence applications in Australia. International Journal on Drug Policy, 2020, 82(102808).

  9. Morrison CN, Byrnes HF, Miller BA, Wiehe SE, WR Ponicki, Wiebe DJ. Exposure to alcohol outlets, alcohol access, and alcohol use among adolescents. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 2019, 205: 107622.

  10. McKetta S, Morrison CN, Keyes K. Trends in US alcohol consumption frequency during the first wave of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 2021, 45(4):773-783.

Study Publications