Impact on alcohol purchasing of a ban on multi‐buy promotions: a quasi‐experimental evaluation comparing <scp>S</scp>cotland with <scp>E</scp>ngland and <scp>W</scp>ales

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:sec><jats:title>Aims</jats:title><jats:p>To evaluate the impact of the 2011 <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">S</jats:styled-content>cottish ban on multi‐buy promotions of alcohol in retail stores.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Design and setting</jats:title><jats:p>Difference‐in‐differences analysis was used to estimate the impact of the ban on the volume of alcohol purchased by <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">S</jats:styled-content>cottish households, compared with those in <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">E</jats:styled-content>ngland and <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">W</jats:styled-content>ales, between <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">J</jats:styled-content>anuary 2010 and <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">J</jats:styled-content>une 2012.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Participants</jats:title><jats:p>A total of 22 356 households in <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">S</jats:styled-content>cotland, <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">E</jats:styled-content>ngland and <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">W</jats:styled-content>ales.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Measurements</jats:title><jats:p>Records of alcohol purchasing from each of four categories (beer and cider, wine, spirits and flavoured alcoholic beverages), as well as total volume of pure alcohol purchased.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Findings</jats:title><jats:p>Controlling for general time trends and household heterogeneity, there was no significant effect of the multi‐buy ban in Scotland on volume of alcohol purchased either for the whole population or for individual socio‐economic groups. There was also no significant effect on those who were large pre‐ban purchasers of alcohol. Most multi‐buys were for beer and cider or for wine. The frequency of shopping trips involving beer and cider purchases increased by 9.2% following the ban (<jats:italic>P</jats:italic> &lt; 0.01), while the number of products purchased on each trip decreased by 8.1% (<jats:italic>P</jats:italic> &lt; 0.01). For wine, however, these effects were not significant.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Conclusions</jats:title><jats:p>Banning multi‐buy promotions for alcohol in <jats:styled-content style="fixed-case">S</jats:styled-content>cotland did not reduce alcohol purchasing in the short term. Wider regulation of price promotion and price may be needed to achieve this.</jats:p></jats:sec>