Table 4.

Identified limitations in current availability research and recommended actions

Limitation	Recommendation(s)
1. There is a narrow focus in both theoretical and empirical literature on acute outcomes (e.g. crime, disorder and violence).	Research should examine the impact of availability on chronic health outcomes to develop an evidence base in this area Stakeholders should seek to maximise access to and utilisation of further spatial and temporal data on consumption to facilitate the above; potential approaches to achieving this include the following: (i) utilising existing consumption datasets where spatial data are collected but only available for analysis under special license systems; (ii) stakeholders lobbying for amendment of informed consent procedures for regularly collected data (e.g. annual national surveys) to allow access to spatial data; and (iii) researchers and funders seeking or allocating new monies to create spatial datasets.
2. Availability is often discussed or measured within highly aggregated outlet categories.	Where possible, researchers' analyses should stratify outlets within low-level categories (e.g. supermarkets, local pubs, nightclubs) to refine understandings of problematic forms of availability. Stakeholders should seek to maximise access to data to facilitate such analyses, for example, by (i) identifying and purchasing suitable market research data; (ii) lobbying governments to legislate to ensure relevant private data are available to researchers with appropriate safeguards to protect commercial interests; and (iii) conducting business surveys or crowdsourcing data, where the latter facilitates the public to voluntarily submit data on outlet characteristics (e.g. through advertising online submission forms) [32].
3. Weak linkage of theory, empirical analysis and policy practice	Researchers should analyse a broader range of availability measures to improve linkage between theory, empirical analysis and local licensing practice. Measures we view as priorities include those incorporating highly localised clustering of outlets, spatial patterning of temporal availability, dichotomous measures and composite indices. Low-level spatial data may be required to construct such measures. Analyses should explore whether relationships between availability and outcomes are discrete or continuous and linear or curvilinear to aid identification of target availability levels.
4. Empirical literature is largely drawn from the USA and Australia.	Analyses in more contexts, particularly European countries, are required to improve generalisability of the evidence base and to facilitate the development of a comparative availability literature.
5. Analyses do not recognise the spatial range of individuals' lives.	Researchers may attempt to use travel surveys or GPS data to generate maps of individuals' usual activities and link these to consumption and purchasing locations to understand the true spatiotemporal cost of purchase and consumption (e.g. whether the supermarket is next door to work or en route on the journey home) rather than simply measuring the distance between outlets and home. Even small-scale studies would be useful to inform large sample analyses
6. Subgroup level analyses are required.	Analyses should give greater consideration to the impact of availability on different population subgroups and drinking patterns of interest to policy makers (e.g. moderate drinkers vs. harmful drinkers) to aid decision making.
7. The interaction between price, place and availability is relatively unexplored.	Researchers should seek local and ideally outlet-level pricing, spending and price promotion data through business surveys, market research data or crowdsourcing (see limitation #2). This data should be incorporated into empirical analyses alongside area-level characterisations to aid unpicking of the price, place and availability interaction.
8. Online alcohol availability has not been considered in the literature to date.	New research should be undertaken examining the extent of online alcohol purchasing and the relationship of this to consumption behaviours and related harms to inform policy debate in this now well-established market sector.