Alcohol consumption and the incidence of acute alcohol-related problems.

Researchers in recent years have suggested that control of the aggregate level of alcohol consumption is an important component of a comprehensive programme for the prevention of alcohol-related problems. The present study focused on ihe relationship between alcohol consumption and perhaps the most significant acute alcohol-related problem, motor vehicle crashes. Data analyzed included monthly frequencies of alcohol-related property damage and injury producing motor vehicle crashes and monthly distribution of beer, wine, and distilled spirits in the State of Michigan. To increase confidence that observed correlations represented causal relationships between aggregate consumption and crash involvement, variance in each time series explainable on the basis of its own past history was filtered out first using ARIMA models, with the remaining variance used in analyses of the consumption!crash relationship. Using cross-lagged correlation methods, significant relationships were found between wholesale beer and wine distribution in a given month, and the number of alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes one month later.