Center & Other Research
National Alcohol Research Center: Epidemiology of Alcohol Problems
The National Alcohol Research Center at the Alcohol Research Group has been funded for 30 years by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcholism (NIAAA). The Center on the Epidemiology of Alcohol Problems has as its specific aims a) to conduct innovative research in alcohol epidemiology--prevalence, incidence, etiology, and mediators of heavy drinking and alcohol problems in general population and subgroups (such as women and ethnic minorities); b) to study societal responses to alcohol problems (e.g., by health services, mutual help groups like AA, family and friends); c) to improve alcohol consumption measurement and environmental assessment, advancing methods and testing key hypotheses; d) to build biostatistical capacity among its scientists and trainees; e) to partner with other organizations and conduct cutting edge, capacity-building national and international research; f) to offer multidisciplinary research training and opportunities for career development; and g) to disseminate new findings widely.
To accomplish these aims, Center grant P30 AA05595 (Thomas Greenfield, PI) currently has the following Core Components: (1) Administrative Core, (2) Statistical and Data Services Infrastructure Core (SDSIC), (3) National Alcohol Surveys, (4) Methodologies for Improving Measurement, and (5) and a health services research component that is studying AA Careers.
1. Administrative Core (Tom Greenfield, Director)
Center leadership located in the Administrative Core is the primary responsibility of the Principal Investigator/Scientific Director, Dr. Thomas Greenfield, together with two senior leaders, Associate Directors Drs. Cheryl Cherpitel and Lee Ann Kaskutas, who together oversee activities and discuss long-range strategies. Additional component directors, Drs. Jason Bond (SDSIC) and William Kerr (Methodologies Core) join the senior leaders in a Management Group. Dr. Greenfield also directs the National Alcohol Surveys (NASs) involving both analysis of the 2005 NAS (N11) and earlier NAS datasets in trend analyses as well as fielding the 2009-10 NAS (N12). Drs. Karen Trocki and Cheryl Cherpitel both work on key studies in the NAS as does Dr. William Kerr, who is playing an increasing role in managing the 2010 N12 survey development. The associate directors have distinct responsibilities for accomplishing the Center's educational mission. Dr. Cherpitel leads scientific enrichment and dissemination activities, and Dr. Kaskutas, who continues as the PI of the NIAAA T32 Training Grant in affiliation with the School of Public Health, UC Berkeley. Dr. Kaskutas has broad responsibilities for training in the Center and continues to enhance trainee and junior scientist career development, research opportunities, and statistical competencies working closely with Dr. Bond and other senior scientists (see further Training).
A Center Scientific Advisory Group meets periodically to assist in the Center's evaluation and conduct strategic planning. The last meeting was held in Emeryville in November, 2008. It is Chaired by Dr. Greenfield and consists of the following members:
Cindy Ehlers, Ph.D., Associate Director
Alcohol Research Center
Molecular & Integrative Neurosciences Department
The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla CA
Keith N. Humphreys, Ph.D., Associate Professor
Psychiatry & Behavioral Science - Stanford University
And VA Palo Alto Health Care System, Menlo Park, CA
Rhonda J. Jones-Webb, Dr.P.H., Associate Professor
Division of Epidemiology and Community Health
School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Stephen M. Shortell, Ph.D., M.P.H., Dean, School of Public Health
Blue Cross of California Distinguished Professor of Health Policy & Management
Professor of Organization Behavior, Haas School of Business
University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
Tim Stockwell, Ph.D., Director
Centre for Addictions Research of BC
Co-Leader, BC Mental Health and Addictions Research Network
Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Victoria, Victoria BC, Canada
Leonard Syme, Ph.D., Professor in Graduate School
Community Health and Human Development, School of Public Health
University of California, Berkeley, CA
2. Statistical and Data Services Infrastructure Core (Jason Bond, Component Director)
Specific Aims of this infrastructure core are 1) to provide statistical consulting and analysis services to the Center grant and affiliated independent grants, 2) to instruct staff on advanced statistical techniques, and 3) to provide data management services for the Center project and support the substantial data archives of the center. Important recent developments include the offering of several courses in advanced statistical modeling, with an emphasis on longitudinal data. Other activities include contributing to numerous analyses conducted by Center scientists and preparing datasets such as the 2000 National Alcohol Survey for public release through CSR's Alcohol Epidemiological Data System AEDS). Additionally, a specialized 2000 NAS (N10) dataset was prepared for the project "Gender, Alcohol, and Culture: Secondary Data Analysis" (R01 AA015775; PI Sharon Wilsnack). This project analyzes data across 40 countries (including the US) and ARG has an analysis subcontract for the overall project. Significant effort by biostatisticians involved exploring new features of the latest Mplus® release, such as the non-equivalence of certain latent growth models and solving complex longitudinal analysis problems encountered in the Center's AA Careers component startup.
3. National Alcohol Surveys (Tom Greenfield, Component Director)
This is the largest and most significant component of the center grant. It includes both continuing analysis of data from the 2005 National Alcohol Survey (N11) as well as preparation for and monitoring the fielding of N12, conducted in 2009-2010. This is the latest, nationally representative (RDD sampling of 50 states plus DC) cross-sectional CATI-based telephone survey of approximately 7,100 individuals. N12 includes large oversamples of African American and Hispanic individuals and enhancements in low population states (as in the prior N10 and N11 NASs conducted in 2000 and 2005, respectively. An innovative element in N12 is the inclusion of a subsample of 400 cell-phone-only respondents (to better access younger adults, some of whom no longer have land lines). Key measures include detailed current and life course drinking measures, expenditures for alcohol, alcohol use disorders and disabilities, alcohol-attributed and non-attributed health conditions, externalities from others' drinking, and numerous cognitive and attitudinal variables, in addition to demographic and geographic variables and other personal characteristics. The survey is being conducted for the Center by Macro International, Inc. Black and Hispanic samples are each expected to have 1400 participants, while there be about 127 American Indian/Alaskan Natives, some 72 Asian Americans and a smaller number of Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders (over 5400 white participants). The survey instrument has been developed by the Center team of investigators and is currently being piloted. Addition analyses are planned for the NAS series and, because of the importance of the life-course heavy drinking and health measures included in recent NAS surveys, a tracer study with a brief questionnaire including repeats of these questionnaires followed the N11 respondents initially surveyed in 2005, conducted by DataStat, Inc., of Ann Arbor, Michigan, allowing for test-retest psychometric analyses. The tracing effort was designed to enhance future R01 applications, such as studies of older Americans, those exposed to violence and sexual trauma, and disparities seen between ethnic minorities and others.
Analytic aims of the NAS component include the following: 1) Trend analyses and Age-Period-Cohort (APC) models including detailed studies of alcohol consumption, alcohol dependence and other alcohol-related consequences; 2) alcohol-related services research, including trends in AA attendance, injuries and alcohol-related use of the emergency department and primary care, access and barriers to treatment including ethnic disparities, and alcohol treatment policies; 3) interpersonal violence, child and adult sexual and physical trauma; 4) Special populations, where work is in part happening in conjunction with two NAS-associated R21s by Center scientists Drs Sarah Zemore and Nina Mulia, and involves analyses of the drinking and risk patterns of special populations, including ethnic minorities, religious groups, GLBT groups, various age categories and other subgroups about which little is known, also examining protective factors in these populations and acculturation and nativity among Hispanics and Mexican origin groups. Finally, 5) we study drinking environments and changing participation in drinking by various gender, ethnic minority and other groups in such venues over time. This is important especially because of ethnic differences in drink sizes by venue (see Component 4 regarding on- and off-premise drink ethanol studies).
4. Methodologies for Improving Measurement (William Kerr, Component Director)
Specific aims of this component include the following: 1) Estimation and analysis of home drink ethanol content; 2) conducting a bar/restaurant drink study to estimate on-premise drink ethanol content; 3) improving measures used in the NAS and other surveys—including undertaking (a) an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) study of sensitive items as part of N11, (b) the application of drink ethanol estimates to NAS alcohol consumption measures, and (c) comparison of multiple alcohol measures; 4) exploratory comparison of NAS and other national general population surveys. These studies are currently well advanced and have led to numerous innovations and several additional awarded and submitted grants. A number of the studies and analyses have broadened to include development and testing of measures for use in other countries and for international comparative studies such as those in the Global Burden of Disease studies now underway.
5. Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) Careers (Lee Kaskutas, Component Director)
This is a longitudinal study of treated and untreated drinkers which began in year 3 (year 27) of the present Center grant cycle. It is investigating the relative contributions of AA attendance, sponsor status, relevant predisposing and enabling characteristics, and severity of dependence on long term drinking outcomes. This is a secondary analysis of 926 individuals who sought alcohol treatment and 672 untreated dependent and problem drinkers from a general population survey. Both were followed for seven years.
