Swedish Institute for Social Research, SOFI, Stockholm University, S-109 91 Stockholm, Sweden.
Eur J Public Health. 2013 Apr;23(2):340-4. doi: 10.1093/eurpub/cks079. Epub 2012 Jul 11.
The public health perspective on alcohol comprises two main tenets: (i) population drinking impacts on alcohol-related harm and (ii) population drinking is affected by the physical and economic availability of alcohol, where alcohol taxes are the most efficient measure for regulating consumption. This perspective has received considerable empirical support from analyses of contemporary data mainly from Europe and North America. However, as yet, it has been little examined in a historical context. The aims of the present article are to use data from tsarist Russia to explore (i) the relation between changes in the tax on alcohol and per capita alcohol consumption and (ii) the relation between per capita alcohol consumption and alcohol mortality.
The material comprised annual data on alcohol taxes, alcohol consumption and alcohol mortality. The tax and alcohol consumption series spanned the period 1864-1907 and the mortality data covered the period 1870-94. The data were analysed by estimating autoregressive integrated moving average models on differenced data.
Changes in alcohol taxes were significantly associated with alcohol consumption in the expected direction. Increases in alcohol consumption, in turn, were significantly related to increases in alcohol mortality.
This study provides support for the utility of the public health perspective on alcohol in explaining changes in consumption and alcohol-related harm in a historical context. We discuss our findings from tsarist Russia in the light of experiences from more recent alcohol policy changes in Russia.
从公共卫生角度来看，酒精主要包含两个原则：（i）人群饮酒会对与酒精相关的伤害产生影响；（ii）人群饮酒会受到酒精供应的物理和经济因素的影响，其中，酒精税是调节消费的最有效措施。这一观点得到了来自欧洲和北美的当代数据分析的大量实证支持。然而，到目前为止，它在历史背景下还没有得到太多的检验。本文的目的是利用沙俄时期的数据，探讨（i）酒精税变化与人均酒精消费量之间的关系；（ii）人均酒精消费量与酒精死亡率之间的关系。
本文的材料包括年度酒精税、酒精消费和酒精死亡率数据。税收和酒精消费系列跨越了 1864-1907 年的时期，死亡率数据涵盖了 1870-94 年的时期。通过对差分数据进行自回归综合移动平均模型估计，对数据进行了分析。
酒精税的变化与预期方向的酒精消费显著相关。反过来，酒精消费的增加与酒精死亡率的增加显著相关。
本研究为公共卫生视角在解释历史背景下消费和与酒精相关的伤害变化方面的实用性提供了支持。我们从沙俄时期的经验出发，讨论了我们在俄罗斯最近的酒精政策变化方面的发现。
