This study is a """"""""natural experiment,"""""""" designed to examine the effects and effectiveness of legislation encouraging alcohol server education as a DUI prevention method. It will compare two approaches: (1) state-mandated server education; and (2) server education encouraged by state law providing license protection or liability reduction for participating establishments. We are conducting a preliminary study of the first type, the Oregon law which represents the first and possibly most comprehensive state mandated alcohol server training law in the United States. In the proposed study we will examine the implementation and effects of server education laws in three additional states. Our dependent variables will include: (l) the extent to which servers and managers in alcohol-serving establishments have been trained and retrained, measured by surveys of establishments and by ABC records; (2) knowledge, attitudes, and self- reported practices of samples of alcohol servers in each state regarding responsible alcohol service; (3) adherence to responsible practices and policies in samples of on-sale alcohol-serving establishments in each state, using on-site patron interviews and observations of servers employing pseudopatron methodology; (4) estimates of customer intoxication from patron interviews and BAC testing; (5) effects on DUI arrests, accidents and fatalities since the law went into effect from archival data; (6) comparisons among the state systems and training curricula, (7) impacts upon enforcement activities by the state ABCs, including types of violations and complaints received and investigated since each law went into effect, and (8) effects on dram shop litigation and liquor liability insurance underwriting and premiums. We will extend our study of the Oregon program to its recently legislated duplicate in New Mexico, to the license-protection incentive systems in Alabama, and to the liability-reduction incentive system in Texas. Dependent variables will be compared between the four experimental states and two comparison states with no state law regarding server education.
