The Alcohol Research Group (ARG) is a multidisciplinary research center whose focus is to conduct research on alcohol use patterns and associated problems and disseminate research findings. Our research team is comprised of epidemiologists, psychologists, economists and researchers in other disciplines.
National Alcohol Research Center: Epidemiology of Alcohol Problems
Alcohol-related disparities are the unifying focus of our Center. We recognize the rising economic inequality in the US, the increasing disparities in alcohol-related problems, health and other outcomes, and the considerable gaps in knowledge.
To address these issues, our work seeks to increase understanding of contributing changes and factors which could inform future programmatic and policy efforts to improve the physical and mental health of individuals and reduce the societal harms and related costs to communities.
- To conduct critically needed research in alcohol epidemiology, gathering information over time about the prevalence, incidence, etiology, mediators and moderators of disparities in drinking patterns and alcohol problems, focusing particularly on subgroups defined by gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status and sexual and gender minority status and utilizing cutting edge methods for applied research.
- To address issues informing the development of drinking interventions and alcohol and health policy decisions related to disparities in alcohol problems and health disparities in alcohol-related causes.
- To develop resources for the study of disparities including surveys, data, measures, analytic methods and geographic linkages and perspectives needed to analyze individual-level, alcohol intake and services, and environmental data in new ways that advance methods and test key hypotheses.
- To disseminate research on alcohol-related risks and alcohol-related disparities and to develop best practices for translation of research findings to disadvantaged populations.
- To promote a richly interactive scientific environment for disparities research through a research-enabling infrastructure with unique opportunities for multi-disciplinary training and career development, especially for early career and minority investigators, and to maintain existing and develop new strategic research partnerships with universities, non-profits and other groups.
The Epidemiology of Alcohol Problems: Alcohol-Related Disparities Center has a 40-year history of making important contributions to public health, alcohol epidemiology and disparities research.
In 1977, ARG received its first National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) grant to establish the National Alcohol Research Center. The Center emphasizes our primary interest in alcohol-related issues and other substances such as tobacco, cannabis and opioids and applies these interests to a broad range of health and mental health outcomes. Over the past 45 years, the Center has trained scientists, completed over 153 studies, supported 137 affiliated projects, and conducted a long series of National Alcohol Surveys every five years since 1979.
ARG houses a highly successful NIAAA T32 Training Program in Alcohol Epidemiology for a diverse, multi-disciplinary group of pre- and postdoctoral fellows mentored by a productive grant-experienced faculty. Our integrated and productive research environment facilitates a successful next phase of the Center, moving science forward ARG operates a highly successful NIAAA-funded T32 Training Program since 1971 through UC Berkeley. Focused on the social epidemiology of alcohol problems and alcohol-related health services, our program has attracted many fellows with strong interests in disparities related to race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and sexual minority status. Learn more.
The Center’s primary focus is detailing and understanding the role of social location, including intersectionality, in the epidemiology of alcohol-related problems and racial, ethnic and socioeconomic disparities.
With this work, we bring attention to lifecourse factors in the development and impacts of problems, and to policy and community contexts in understanding associations between alcohol use and disorders with health conditions, mental health issues, and health services access and utilization.
We also look at alcohol patterns that co-occur with tobacco, cannabis and illicit drug use, alcohol use disorders, and other substance use disorders.
Each Center project includes these major elements and addresses a part of this framework.
Four research projects are at the core of the Center. Two projects continue from the prior round, the health disparities project and policy project with a focus on quality of health services, and a new project examines high-intensity drinking. The 2024 National Alcohol Survey will provide with new data to develop and examine up-to-date trends in alcohol use and problems, and potential disparities in the risk for alcohol-related problems across gender, socioeconomic and racial/ethnic groups.
All projects focus on new aims and directions, building on the Center’s 45-year history.
