Alcohol Research Group

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            Senior Scientist, William (Bill) C. Kerr, PhD, is Director of ARG’s National Alcohol Research Center and Co-Directs the National Alcohol Survey and the Health Disparities projects.  Bill also serves as the scientific director at ARG and continues to lead R01 projects, including a grant to investigate secondhand harms from alcohol and other drugs.

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            Scientist Nina Mulia, DrPH, is Center Associate Director and Director of the Alcohol Services project. She specializes in and has published widely on race and ethnicity and socioeconomic disparities in heavy drinking, alcohol problems, and alcohol services utilization.

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          • ASSESSING HID OVER THE LIFECOURSE

            This project, led by Camillia Lui, PhD, traces trends in harmful drinking patterns over a 40-year period, and identifies a range of alcohol-related precursors and problems through event-based and population-based approaches to inform early screening and interventions for high-risk groups.

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            Scientist and Deputy Scientific Director, Priscilla Martinez, oversees the survey design, data collection, and analyses.  In the latest cycle of the NAS, Priscilla conducted dried blood spot sampling to help better understand the relationship between how our immune systems work and what role they might play in how alcohol use can affect our mental health.

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Hepatitis B and C among Homeless Adults,

Funding: NIDA R01 DA14294

Project PI: Lillian Gelberg, MD (UCLA)

Persons infected with the hepatitis B virus (HBV) or hepatitis C virus (HCV) are at high risk for serious long-term health problems, and they are potentially infectious to others. Because of the seriousness of these infections, the NIH has developed a national agenda for preventing the spread and consequences of HBV and HCV. This agenda includes early detection, treatment, and prevention efforts for high-risk and infected persons. Homelessness has reached crisis proportions in the US today. Recent research by our team and others suggests that homeless adults in urban areas are a group at particularly high risk for HBV and HCV infections due to high rates of risky drug use and risky sexual behaviors. Despite the apparent high risk, however, there is only limited research on viral hepatitis in this group.

We propose to conduct epidemiologic and health services research regarding HBV and HCV in a population-based sample of 500 homeless adults. We will recruit a probability sample of homeless adults with oversampling of injection drug users from 30 shelters and meal programs in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles. Respondents will undergo a two-hour interview (including the Diagnostic Interview Schedule or DIS-IV) and blood draw for hepatitis serology.

We will estimate the prevalence of HBV and HCV and identify risk factors for each. We will evaluate whether homeless adults with histories of injection and non-injection drug use, risky sex, serious alcohol or mental disorders, or chronic homelessness have an elevated risk for these infections. We will also conduct health services research in which we will describe the respondents’ past history of HBV/HCV testing, awareness of infection status, medical care for HBV and HCV, and willingness to return for HBV/HCV test results. Further, we will identify utilization of medical and non-medical settings to identify sites for future screening, treatment, and prevention efforts. We will provide hepatitis B immunization to those that test negative for hepatitis B. We will bridge the gap between research and prevention by using the Theory of Planned Behavior to understand protective behaviors used by homeless adults to avoid exposure to infectious diseases.

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About ARG

We are a non-profit research organization that seeks to improve public health through deepening our understanding of alcohol and other drug use and investigating innovative approaches to reduce its consequences for individuals, families, and communities.

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