Funding: NIAAA P50 AA005595
This project, building on earlier NAS analyses, analyzes the current 2010 NAS (N12) and 5 previous NAS surveys from 1979 to 2005, and in 2015 will add the proposed N13 data. Analyses capitalize on unique strengths of the NAS survey series with many key variables measured cross-sectionally at 5-year intervals over the past 30 years. From the 2000 on, the NAS Resources Core will provide neighborhood and county-level geo-referencing that captures environmental measures of alcohol availability, local drinking culture and socioeconomic conditions, which brings a fresh perspective to our analyses aims by locating respondents within a particular geographic setting. Together with the life-course drinking and other risk factors, the inclusion of the environmental variables will add considerable depth to our plans to model problem outcomes. We will be undertaking new age-period-cohort (APC) modeling to better understand the underlying components of long-term and recent trends. All analyses also benefit from greater measurement precision (see Component 3, above). A series of aims test hypotheses to advance the epidemiology and etiology of a broad range of alcohol-related problems including alcohol dependence, drunk driving, accidents and injuries, and family, work, health and legal consequences of heavy drinking. Other analyses will evaluate the determinants of externalities related to others’ drinking including violence victimization, family problems and vandalism, and will investigate health care utilization by individuals with alcohol use disorders. Finally, analyses of self-reported drunkenness and heavy drinking occasions will yield new knowledge of these important and inter-related measures and their relationship to outcomes such as impaired driving. Analyses aim to fill a nuber of important research gaps in these areas.
