ArticleBMJ public health2026
Impact of later trading hours for bars and clubs on alcohol-related ambulance call-outs and crimes in Scotland: a controlled interrupted time series study.
Article in BMJ public health, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
17 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction: Alcohol-related harms are prevalent late at night, especially on weekends, when high levels of intoxication contribute to increased rates of injury and violence. Reducing or increasing alcohol trading hours late at night in bars and clubs is generally associated with reduced and increased harms, respectively. This study evaluates the impact of later alcohol trading hours in the Scottish cities of Aberdeen and Glasgow on alcohol-related ambulance call-outs and crimes. Under local policy changes, 38 bars in Aberdeen had trading hours extended between 1 and 3 h up to 3am, and 10 nightclubs in Glasgow had a 1-h extension to 4am. Methods: Following a natural experiment evaluation framework, we used a controlled interrupted time series design to compare outcomes before and after policy changes, from May 2015 to March 2020. The primary outcome was a count of total weekend night-time alcohol-related ambulance call-outs. Secondary outcomes included weekend night-time crimes. Results: In Aberdeen, the policy led to a significant relative increase of 11.4% (effect size=4.643; 95% CI 0.292 to 8.994; p=0.036) in alcohol-related ambulance call-outs, and 8.5% (effect size=3.442; 95% CI 0.239 to 6.645; p=0.035) in reported crimes, at weekend night-times compared with Edinburgh (control). Findings were not significant and robust across analyses for Glasgow. Conclusion: Later alcohol trading hours had a significant negative impact on alcohol-related ambulance call-outs and reported crimes in Aberdeen (where more premises had longer extensions) but not in Glasgow, suggesting the number, capacity and type of premises moderated outcomes. This is important for the design of future national and local licensing policies and regulations.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.