Examining the Intended and Unintended Impacts of Raising a Minimum Legal Drinking Age on Primary and Secondary Societal Harm and Violence from a Contextual Policy Perspective: A Scoping Review

Ruud T. J. Roodbeen, Rachel I. Dijkstra, Karen Schelleman-Offermans, Roland Friele and Dike van de Mheen
Additional contact information
Ruud T. J. Roodbeen: Tranzo Scientific Center for Care and Wellbeing, Tilburg University, P.O. Box 90153, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands
Rachel I. Dijkstra: Tilburg Law School, Tilburg University, P.O. Box 90151, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands
Karen Schelleman-Offermans: Faculty of Psychology & Neuroscience, Department of Work & Social Psychology, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands
Roland Friele: Tranzo Scientific Center for Care and Wellbeing, Tilburg University, P.O. Box 90153, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands
Dike van de Mheen: Tranzo Scientific Center for Care and Wellbeing, Tilburg University, P.O. Box 90153, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 4, 1-21

Abstract: Raising a minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) has generated interest and debate in research and politics, but opposition persists. Up to now, the presentation of impacts focussed on effectiveness (i.e., intended impact); to our knowledge, no literature syntheses focussed on both intended and unintended impacts. A systematic scoping review was conducted in which a search strategy was developed iteratively and literature was obtained from experts in alcohol research and scientific and grey databases. Ninety-one studies were extracted and analysed using formative thematic content analysis. Intended impacts were reported in 119 units of information from the studies (68% positive), forming four paths: implementation, primary and (two) on secondary societal harm and violence. Unintended developments were reported in 43 units of information (30% positive), forming five themes. Only eight studies reported on implementation. Furthermore, a division between primary and secondary paths and the use of a bridging variable (drinking patterns in analyses or methodology) was discovered. These results provide an insight into how well legislation works and can be used to discover or implement new means of curbing underage drinking and alcohol-related violence and harm. They also offer valuable starting points for future research and underline the importance of considering unintended developments.

Keywords: minimum legal drinking age; alcohol policy; policy impact; societal harm; societal violence; public health; underage youth; environmental research; scoping review (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/4/1999/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/4/1999/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:4:p:1999-:d:501772

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().