Table 1.

List of studies on the association between alcohol policies and suicide mortality, 1999–2014

Year	Author(s)	Journal	Sample	Location	Study Period	Alcohol Policies	Outcome	Design	Main Findings
1999	Birckmayer & Hemenway	AJPH	Decedents aged 18–20	U.S. 48 states	1970–1990	MLDA; beer excise tax	Number of suicides	Repeated cross-sectional	The suicide rate of 18- to 20-year- old youths living in states with an 18-year MLDA was 8% higher than the suicide rate among 18- to 20- year-old youths in states with a 21- year MLDA (p<0.01).
2002	Escobedo & Ortiz	Accid Anal Prev.	Decedents	New Mexico (U.S.)	1990–1994	Liquor store outlet density	County- specific suicide rates	County panel data	Greater availability of liquor outlets was associated with higher suicide rates (p=0.03).
2003	Markowitz et al	J Ment Health Policy Econ	Youth decedents aged 10–24	U.S. states	1976–1999	Beer excise tax; outlet density; blood alcohol content (BAC); zero tolerance.	Suicide rates	State panel data	Increases in the excise tax on beer were associated with a reduced number of male suicides, but has no impact on female suicides. Suicides by males aged 20–24 are positively related to the availability of alcohol and negatively related to the presence of a 0.08 BAC law and zero tolerance laws for youth impaired driving. Female suicides were not impacted by the availability of alcohol.
2004	Carpenter	JPAM	Youth decedents aged 15–29	U.S. states	1981–1998	Adoption of Zero Tolerance Laws	Suicide rates	State panel data	The presence of a zero tolerance policy was associated with a 10.3% reduction in suicides among 15–17- year-old males and a 7.7% reduction in suicides among 18–20- year-old males, and both were significant. No effects were found among 21–29-year-old males, and no consistent effects were found among females.
2005	Yamasaki et al	Psychol Rep	Decedents	Switzerland	1965–1994	Alcohol specific tax	Suicide rates	Time series analysis	The tax on alcohol was positively correlated with male suicide rate in an autoregressive model (p<0.01), but no association was detected for female suicide rate.
2006	Värnik et al	Addiction	Decedents	Estonia	Before, during and after a major Soviet anti- alcohol reforms in 1985	Reduction of state alcohol production and sales by some 60%; raising prices by 45%; propaganda campaign to change attitudes; improving alcoholism treatment; punishing alcohol misuse	BAC level among decedents	Pre-post comparison	During the reforms, BAC-positive suicides decreased by 39.2% for males and 41.4% for females, and the largest fall occurred at the BAC 2.5‰ plus level for both sexes. However, after the reform ended, suicide rates started to rise.
2007	Zalcman & Mann	Contemp Drg Probl	Decedents	Alberta, Canada	1976–1999	Three stages of privatization of retail sale: opening of privately owned wine stores in 1985; opening of privately owned cold beer stores and selling spirits and wine in hotels in rural areas in 1989; privatization of all liquor stores in 1994	Suicide rates	Interrupted time series design	Significant increase in male and female suicide rates were found after both 1985 and 1989 privatization, and significant increase in male suicide rate was found in 1994, but not among female.
2009	Johnson et al	ACER	Decedents	California (U.S.)	1995–2000	Outlet density	Suicide rates	Repeated cross-sectional at zip code level	Completed suicide rates were higher in zip code areas with greater local and lagged bar densities, and those with greater local but not lagged off-premise outlet densities. Completed suicide rates were lower in zip code areas with greater local restaurant densities. Completed suicide rates were lower among blacks and Hispanics, but higher among rural, older, low income whites.
2009	Pridemore & Snowden	AJPH	Decedents	Slovenia	1997–2005	New national alcohol policy in 2003 that limited alcohol availability with MLDA and hours of sale	Monthly suicide counts	Interrupted time series design	There was a significant overall decrease in the number of monthly suicides following the policy’s implementation. A significant association was detected among men, but not women.
2009	Carpenter and Dobkin	AEJ: Applied Economics	Decedents aged 19–22	U.S. states	1997–2004	MLDA	Suicide rates	Regression discontinuity design	The suicide rate increased by over 16 percent at age 21.
2011	Son & Topyan	Eur J Health Econ	Decedents	U.S. states	1995–2004	State excise taxes	Number of suicides	State panel data	Wine excise taxes were negatively associated with suicides rates, but no association was detected for spirit tax or beer tax.
2012	Grucza et al	ACER	Decedents	U.S. states	1990–2004	MLDA	Suicide (Y/N)	Repeated cross-sectional	Significant policy-by-sex interactions were observed: women exposed to permissive drinking age laws were at higher risk for suicide, with stronger effect for those born after 1960; no significant effects were observed for women born prior to 1960. No overall effect or effect on men was observed.
2012	Sauliune et al	Alcohol Alcoholism	Decedents aged 15–64	Lithuania	2006–2009	Implementation of comprehensive alcohol control policy in 2007- 2008 that increased excise taxes and restricted alcohol advertising, availability, drunk driving, and illegal imports and sales	Years of potential life lost (YPLL) due to alcohol- related suicide	Pre-post comparison	Years of potential life lost due to alcohol-related suicides showed significant increase among males, but was stable among females.
2013	Pridemore et al	AJPH	Decedents	Russia	2000–2010	Policies restricting sales volume and quality, requiring registration of production and distribution, requiring new fee, equipment costs and new excise tax stamp	Number of suicides	Interrupted time series design	No impact of on female suicide mortality but a reduction of about 9% in male suicides (p=0.01).
2013	Zupanc et al	Eur Addict Res	Decedents	Slovenia	Before, during and after policy change in 2003	New national alcohol policy in 2003 that limited alcohol availability with MLDA and hours of sale	BAC level among decedents	Pre-post comparison	Among BAC-positive suicide victims, BACs were lower after the policy change compared to those tested in the period before the change.
2014	Berman	AJPH	Alaska native men aged 15–34 in rural communities	Alaska (U.S.)	1980–2007	Dry status (1 = sale and importation or possession prohibited, 0 = any other status); any local option adopted (1 = yes, 0 = no)	Number of suicides	Repeated cross-sectional	Suicide rates were higher in communities prohibiting alcohol importation under state law, but the effect was not significant after controlling for other community characteristics.
2014	Giesbrecht et al	Addiction	Decedents	U.S. states (14 states)	2003–2011	Outlet density	Alcohol Involveme nt (Y/N) among suicide decedents	Repeated cross-sectional	Higher off-premises alcohol outlet density was associated with greater proportions of alcohol-related (BAC>0) suicides among men. There was a significant interaction between off-premises alcohol availability and American Indian/Alaska Native race such that this subgroup had highest BAC positivity. On-premises density was also significantly associated with BAC >0 and BAC ≥0.08 among male decedents.