According to a new national study, 7.4 percent of surveyed respondents reported that children in their care experienced harm as a result of someone else’s drinking. By comparison, previous studies in the U.S. have found general child maltreatment rates to be approximately 1 to 2 percent. The results were published online in the Journal of Pediatrics. Respondent caregivers who experienced alcohol’s harm from a spouse or partner, or if they lived with a heavy drinker, were almost four times … [Read more...]
Practitioners
As practitioners, you want to help your clients be as healthy as they can be and that starts with having the right resources at your fingertips. Our goal is to provide you with the most up to date information on alcohol-related health issues, including assessment tools, recent findings, and relevant information to assist you in your every day practice.
A new study from ARG Senior Scientist Sarah E. Zemore and colleagues found that people in recovery who attended alternative support groups experienced more cohesion and greater satisfaction when compared with members of traditional 12-step programs. Alternative programs included Women for Sobriety, LifeRing, and SMART Recovery. Study team members included ARG scientists Lee Kaskutas and Amy Mericle, and research associate Jordana Hemberg.
Results also indicated that people who attended … [Read more...] People who used cannabis while undergoing treatment for an alcohol use disorder (AUD) had significantly fewer days of alcohol abstinence at the end of treatment compared with non-cannabis users, according to a new study from ARG biostatistician Meenakshi Sabina Subbaraman. Study team members included ARG research associate Deidre Patterson, and Jane Metrik and Robert M. Swift of Brown University.
Findings showed that one day of cannabis use reduced the number of abstinence days by four to … [Read more...] Cancer survivors were more likely to report heavy drinking and more frequent heavy drinking occasions compared to others at the same ages with similar drinking histories, according to a new study from the Alcohol Research Group, a program of the Public Health Institute. Heavy drinking was defined as having five or more drinks at any one time.
When racial and ethnic group-specific effects were evaluated, this increased heavy drinking was found to occur among women and Whites, while no increase … [Read more...] While ARG is known for its population-based analyses of how drinking and other drug use affects our health, it is also a place where scientists engage and foster partnerships with community-based organizations to support the people they serve.
One such researcher is Associate Scientist Camillia Lui. Since her career began, Lui has looked at health-related disparities among racial/ethnic groups and adolescents and young adults. For Lui, whether measuring drinking rates or investigating … [Read more...] If the vote for marijuana legalization in Washington State were to be held again, Initiative 502 (I-502) would potentially have a stronger majority than it did in November 2012, according to a new study from the Alcohol Research Group, a program of the Public Health Institute, published today in Contemporary Drug Problems.
Researchers found that among people who voted against I-502, 14 percent would now vote in favor of the measure compared to 4.8 percent of yes-voters who would change their … [Read more...] Discrimination is associated with heavy drinking, drinking-related problems, and greater risk of alcohol use disorders according to new research from the Alcohol Research Group, a program of the Public Health Institute, published online in Social Science & Medicine.
Although the health effects of discrimination have been widely studied, this systematic review is the first comprehensive assessment of the research specifically on alcohol use. Researchers reviewed 97 studies, seeking to … [Read more...] ARG received a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant sub-award in collaboration with BrightOutcome, an innovative software development company that focuses on creating applications to improve population health. This contract will see the research team through Phase II of a project that aims to enhance a previously developed multi-translated alcohol measures catalog, which featured Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages.
The current prototype contains 127 … [Read more...] The socioeconomic makeup of a neighborhood may have a greater influence on people than previously thought, Associate Scientist and lead author Katherine Karriker-Jaffe suggests.
The study published in Prevention Science showed men who live in affluent neighborhoods held attitudes more favorable to drinking and were more likely to drink heavily and to experience consequences related to alcohol use, such as family problems or getting into fights, than residents of other neighborhoods. … [Read more...] ARG is pleased to announce it has received a $7.3M grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) to support the continuation of its National Alcohol Research Center. The funds will be dispersed over a five year period beginning this year through to 2020.
The grant supports four core components and three research projects that focus on addressing alcohol-related health disparities in order to identify and reduce the effects of economic or social disadvantage on … [Read more...]New Findings on Alternative Support Groups
Cannabis’s Effect on Post Treatment Sobriety
Cancer Survivors Drink More After Diagnosis
Researcher’s Work Helps Reduce Disparities
WA Support for Marijuana Legalization Grew
Discrimination Associated with Heavy Drinking
SBIR Subaward Supports Innovative APP
Neighborhood’s Effect on Drinking
ARG Receives Five-Year Grant