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ASIPS and GIS

Projects using the Alcohol-Sensitive Information Planning System have been carried out in 13 cities and one county in California (Personal comm., Friedner Wittman). In 1996, an electronic data collection and a GIS program were added to ASPIS. Eleven of the current projects use GIS mapping (Personal comm., Friedner Wittman).

The projects were designed to help police "identify the extent and location of alcohol and substance-abuse problems" and to create maps to show hot spots of problem alcohol activity (Join Together 2000).

The ADSIPS program is specifically formatted for each community, using "piggyback" data that has been gathered from various agencies (Harding and Wittman 1995). The data collected include the extent of alcohol-involvement in all incidents and the time and location of incidents (Harding and Wittman 1995).

Using GIS, the density of alcohol outlets, the distance between outlets, and the distance from alcohol outlets to other places (such as schools) can be determined. GIS is also used to map incidents against other factors such as land use (Harding and Wittman 1995).

"Community Tours" combining GIS maps, charts, and tables are available to disseminate information into the community (Personal communication, Friedner Wittman).