William C. Ph.D.

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William C. Kerr, Ph.D.

Background Information and Areas of Research

image, Dr. Kerr

Bill Kerr is a senior scientist at ARG.

Before joining ARG in 2001, Kerr served as project director of the Collaborative Alcohol Related
Longitudinal Project at the University of California, San Francisco.

Since joining ARG, Kerr has conducted research using individual-level data from surveys and aggregate-level data from sales and mortality statistics. His areas of interest include: the methodology of alcohol use measurement, trends in U.S. alcohol consumption, and the underlying causes and relationships between alcohol use and mortality outcomes. Some of his recent studies have found that drinks consumed by Americans at home and in bars and restaurants tend to have widely varying amounts of alcohol and are, on average, larger than the "standard" drink. Currently, Kerr is leading a study of U.S. drink alcohol content that is expected to reveal additional details of drink variation. He also leads a project assessing the time-series relationships between per capita alcohol consumption measures and mortality rates from potentially alcohol-related causes in the United States from 1950 to 2002. An innovative feature of this project is the estimation of the alcohol content of beer, wine, and spirits sold in each state and year, which has generated new estimates of the per capita consumption of alcohol during this time.

Kerr received his doctorate in economics from the University of California at Davis. His dissertation focused on the role of quality choice and time discounting in individual-level alcohol consumption dynamics and the differential response to price change by light, moderate and heavy drinkers. He received his bachelor's from New College in Sarasota, Florida, where his thesis focused on the price elasticity of state-run lotteries and their costs and benefits for society.

Selected Publications

Kerr, W.C., Fillmore, K.M. & Marvy, P. (2000) Beverage specific alcohol consumption and cirrhosis mortality: evidence from a group of English speaking, beer drinking countries. Addiction, 95(3):339-346.

Kerr, W.C., Fillmore, K.M. & Bostrom, A. (2002) Stability of alcohol consumption over time: evidence from three longitudinal surveys from the United States. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 63:325-333.

Fillmore, K.M., Kerr, W.C. & Bostrom, A. (2003) Disentangling transitions in drinking status, serious illness and mortality risk, Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 64(2) 278-285.

Greenfield, T.K. & Kerr W.C. (2003) Tracking alcohol consumption over time. Alcohol Research and Health, 27(1):30-38.

Kerr, W.C., Greenfield, T. K., Bond, J., Ye, Y. & Rehm, J. Age-period-cohort decomposition of beverage-specific alcohol consumption for the U.S. using the 1979, 1984, 1990, 1995, and 2000 National Alcohol Surveys. Addiction 2004, 99, 1111-1120.

Kerr, W.C. (2004) Editorial: Pancreatitis mortality and population level alcohol consumption: taking the science a step forward. Addiction, 99(10) 1231.

Kerr, W.C., Greenfield, T.K. & Brown, S. (2004) National and State Estimates of the mean ethanol content of beer sold in the US and their impact on per capita consumption estimates: 1988 to 2001. Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, 28(10) 1524-1532.

Kerr, W.C., Greenfield, T.K., Tujague, J. & Brown, S.E. (2005) A drink is a drink? Variation in the amount of alcohol contained in beer, wine and spirits drinks in a US methodological sample. Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, 29(11):2015-2021.

Kerr, W.C., Greenfield, T.K., Tujague, J. & Brown, S.E. (in press) The alcohol content of wine consumed in the US and per capita consumption: new estimates reveal different trends. Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, forthcoming.

Fillmore, K.M., Kerr, W.C., Stockwell, T., Chikritzhs, T. & Bostrom, A. (2006) Moderate alcohol use and reduced mortality risk: systematic error in prospective studies. Addiction Research and Theory, forthcoming.

Grants & Contracts

National Alcohol Research Center, NIAAA P30 AA05595
Component 4: Methodology Studies Core
Component Director: William Kerr, Ph.D.

Alcohol Consumption and Mortality in the U.S., 1950�2000, NIAAA R01 014362
.

Other ARG Publications of This Author

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Last updating of page: August 15, 2006