The prevention of alcoholism: an empirical report on the effects of outlet availability.

Recent studies suggest that alcohol availability as measured by outlet rates is unrelated to per capita consumption or rates of alcoholism in the United States. Drawing from the same data bases, this article assesses the effects of outlet rates while controlling for the effects of per capita income, urbanism, and limitations by population on the number of sales outlets. The analysis discloses strong effects of outlet availability on per capita consumption and alcoholism rates in states that do not have restrictions on the number of outlets per unit of population.