# The Legacy Effects of Discriminatory Housing Policies on Community Availability of Alcohol

> **NIH NIH R21** · MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $222,813

## Abstract

Project Summary
We propose to develop a GIS-based method for identifying areas historically subject to redlining, blockbusting,
and other discriminatory housing practices to understand the long-term impact of these public policies and
practices on current day community availability of alcohol (CAA). We will build on our earlier research by
deriving and validating such areas through archival research for our study cities of Flint, MI, and Baltimore,
MD—two distinct but alcohol-saturated and heavily redlined communities. We will explore social and built
environmental data that may confound the association to CAA by using both contemporary and historical
datasets. In contrast to research that only associates CAA with violence, crime, and various health outcomes,
we move back temporally to determine how unhealthy environments persist over time via the landscapes
created by discriminatory housing practices. We also explore the potential mediating role of other structural
neighborhood factors, including housing vacancy, concentrated poverty, racial segregation, and presence of
community amenities, which may mediate the relationship between historical housing policy and contemporary
alcohol outlet density. Lastly, we will evaluate contemporary evidence-based policy interventions to address
inequities in CAA and violence. We will specifically evaluate the impact of recently passed legislation—
‘TransForm Baltimore’—on the CAA and the inequitable distribution of alcohol outlets in Baltimore, as well as
changes in violence associated with enforcement of the policy. We will also examine the potential of
comparable legislation for Flint to correct historically persistent built environmental disparities. The proposed
research is extremely relevant to NIAAA’s funding priorities because no comprehensive inquiry has been made
into historical antecedents to community availability of alcohol (and we therefore have little direct scientific
evidence of the effects of these antecedents). Knowing the extent to which redlining, blockbusting, and other
discriminatory or racist housing practices have influenced the current form of the built environment (including
via the distribution and density of alcohol outlets) will give policymakers and researchers a better view into how
to intervene on such matters. This research is poised to make substantial contributions to literature on urban
planning and alcohol abuse because of the nascence of research at the intersection of these topics. With
evidence gained from this work, we anticipate that communities will be emboldened in their efforts to correct
the ongoing negative effects of housing disinvestment, including on CAA, and will be able to replicate our
design to highlight how disinvestment has specifically affected their communities.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9852933
- **Project number:** 5R21AA026674-02
- **Recipient organization:** MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Richard Casey Sadler
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $222,813
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-02-01 → 2022-01-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9852933

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9852933, The Legacy Effects of Discriminatory Housing Policies on Community Availability of Alcohol (5R21AA026674-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9852933. Licensed CC0.

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