The methods of the Community Guide review process15,16 were
used to assess whether the control of alcohol outlet density is
an effective means of reducing excessive alcohol consumption
and related harms. In brief, this process involves
forming a systematic review development team (the team);
developing a conceptual approach to organizing, grouping,
and selecting interventions; selecting interventions to
evaluate; searching for and retrieving available research evidence
on the effects of those interventions; assessing the
quality of and abstracting information from each study that
meets inclusion criteria; drawing conclusions about the body
of evidence of effectiveness; and translating the evidence on
intervention effectiveness into recommendations. Evidence is
collected on positive or negative effects of the intervention on
other health and nonhealth outcomes. When an intervention
is shown to be effective, information is also included about
the applicability of evidence (i.e., the extent to which available
effectiveness data might generalize to diverse population segments
and settings), the economic impact of the intervention,
and barriers to implementation. The results of this review
process are then presented to the Task Force on Community
Preventive Services (Task Force), an independent scientific
review board from outside the federal government, which
considers the evidence on intervention effectiveness and
determines whether the evidence is sufficient to warrant a
recommendation