Automating advocacy: creating local alcohol harm risk profiles to assist community input into alcohol license applications

The physical (spatial) and temporal availability of alcohol is a key determinant of alcohol use and harm. Community input into local alcohol licensing decisions is vital and may be supported by online tools that provide information on alcohol harm risk for local areas. We developed an online tool to provide data on area-level factors (deprivation and ethnic composition) shown to increase a community's risk of alcohol-related harm from the surrounding density and proximity of licensed premises. Data were derived using the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD18), the New Zealand Index of Deprivation (NZDep18), and the New Zealand Census 2018. In addition, we mapped proximity to sensitive sites (schools, hospitals and Marae [Māori meeting grounds]) and existing licensed alcohol premises. In this paper, we demonstrate the development and use of our automated alcohol reporting tool that integrates numerous secondary data sources related to alchohol-related risks in the community within a 1 and 2 km radius (buffer) of an address seeking an alcohol off-license. Online tools leveraging geospatial data may assist community-based organisations to actively participate in local alcohol licensing decision processes using a robust evidence-base and support efforts to ensure that the impact of licensing decisions on equity is explicitly considered.