Population Change and Public Drinking in Three Rural Communities

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Abstract
Three rural communities are compared in terms of barroom occupancy rates and observed alcohol consumption in that setting. It is hypothesized that rapid population increase will be associated with higher barroom occupancy rates and heavier consumption rates. This hypothesis is not supported. Instead it is found that higher levels of public drinking are found in association with population loss. It is concluded that generalizations concerning the deleterious effects of population growth should be made with caution only until additional studies document more precisely the nature of possible relationships between rapid population change and community mental health. Although it appears that progress has been made in developing methodologies for in-vivo studies of public drinking behaviour (Kessler & Gomber, 1974), such studies remain sparse in the drinking literature. Particularly infrequent are studies of barroom drinking designed to test specific hypotheses about the influence of changes in community life on public drinking behaviour. Many studies have focused on the sociology of bar behaviour (Cavan, 1966; Lewis, 1955; Marcrory, 1952; Rowbuck & Frese, 1976), identifying types of bars, distribution and location of public drinking settings, and characteristics and attitudes of patrons. Other studies have compared barroom drinking in laboratory settings (Billings, Weiner, Kessler & Gomberg, 1976), used observations to validate self-reports of drinking behaviour (Harford, Dorman & Feinhandler, 1976) and measured the effects of setting characteristics on consumption rates (Bach & Schaefer, 1979).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

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