Cheryl J. Cherpitel, DrPH

Dr. Cherpitel is a Senior Scientist at the U.S. National Alcohol Research Center, Public Health Institute, Alcohol Research Group (ARG), in Emeryville, CA and former Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre on Alcohol Epidemiology and Injury. She began her professional career in nursing and after receiving her Dr. P.H degree in 1984 she joined ARG as a scientist. Her research has included a special emphasis on gender, ethnic and regional differences in the risk of injury from drinking, including cross-cultural comparisons of ERs across eight countries comprising the Emergency Room Collaborative Alcohol Analysis Project (ERCAAP), and 12 countries comprising the WHO Collaborative Study on Alcohol and Injuries. The WHO project adopted Dr. Cherpitel’s protocol and methodology developed in the ERCAAP studies, which is known as the “Cherpitel Model” and has become the ‘gold standard’ internationally for studying the burden of alcohol in ER caseloads.

This ER work cumulated in development of the International Collaborative Alcohol and Injury Study (ICAIS), which includes ER data from alcohol and injury studies, all utilizing the “Cherpitel Model”, from individual ER studies as well as from four international collaborative alcohol research projects (ERCAAP and WHO as well as projects supported by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the US. National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) Intramural program). ICAIS includes over 40,000 ER patients from 100 ER sites covering 31 countries and 5 continents, and has been a leading data source for refining the attributable fraction of injury morbidity to alcohol in estimates of the Global Burden of Disease, informing safe drinking guidelines internationally, and informing development of both the DSM5 and reformulation of the ICD-11 diagnostic classification of a single episode of harmful substance use.

Many of these. ER studies also included the epidemiology of drug use alone and in combination with alcohol and the risk of injury. This work has resulted in the development of two brief screening instruments, the Rapid Alcohol Problems Screen (RAPS) and Rapid Drug Problems Screen (RDPS), which have been used by researchers and clinicians internationally in identifying alcohol and drug use disorders in both clinical and general populations. Research also includes the epidemiology of drinking patterns and alcohol-related problems in the general population on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, and brief intervention in the ER among U.S. Mexican-origin young adults living on the U.S.-Mexico border.

She has been continuously funded by NIAAA for the last 40 years including 18 years of R01 support for studies contributing to the ICAIS database, and has authored over 300 articles in peer-reviewed journals. She has served as a consultant for NIH, WHO and PAHO, including being lead editor on two books, Alcohol and Injuries: Emergency Department Studies in an International Perspective, published by WHO in 2010 and Prevention of Alcohol-Related Injuries in the Americas: From Evidence to Policy Action, published by PAHO in 2013. She has also served on the NIAAA Initial Review Group of the Committee on Psychosocial Research, Clinical and Treatment Subcommittee, and the NIAAA National Advisory Council.