Alcohol Research Group

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    • About
          • ABOUT THE CENTER

            • History, Mission, & Focus
          • MEET THE DIRECTOR


            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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          • THE CENTER TEAM

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          • MEET THE ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR

            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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    • National Alcohol Surveys
          • ABOUT THE SURVEY

            • About the National Alcohol Survey
            • NAS Datasets
            • Get Access to the NAS data
          • MEET THE SURVEY CO-DIRECTOR

            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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Methodologies for Improving Measurement of Alcohol Use and Problems (A Center Research Component)

Funding: NIAAA P50 AA005595

This component continues Center research to improve precision of alcohol measurement, make innovations in research design and measures for clinical populations.  To accomplish this we are undertaking three new methodological sub-studies.  One sub-study (Dr. Greenfield) harnesses data from the NAS Core’s Cell-phone and Landline samples. The cell-only population is projected to comprise 30% of the U.S. population by 2015, so that reaching individuals in such households is crucial to securing nationally representative samples. Results will inform the alcohol field and optimize future national surveys.  Addressing NIAAA priorities of research on special populations, the second sub-study (Dr. Cherpitel) analyzes biases from case-crossover studies on the relative risk of injury and alcohol and alcohol-attributable fraction in cross-national emergency room studies.  It applies new and innovative methods towards AAF estimation and modifications that have not previously explored cross-nationally.  Findings will improve research design and have domestic and international impact on global burden of disease estimates.  The third sub-study (Dr. Nayak) examines variability in item functioning of the AUDIT, a widely used alcohol use disorder screening tool; it addresses the NIAAA research priority of better understanding differential reliability and validity of AUD diagnoses among demographic, ethnic, and cultural subgroups, and it investigates influences of drinking culture and gender inequity on screening to mitigate biases in the scale.  Findings will inform clinical and research guidelines for important subgroups.

Who We Are

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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