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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    • People
          • 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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    • Research
          • CENTER RESEARCH

            • Cores
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            • Affiliated Research
          • 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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  • Training Program
        • OVERVIEW

          • About the Training Program
          • Predoctoral Fellowship
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        • APPLY NOW

          • Predoctoral Fellowship Application
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  • Pamela Trangenstein, PhD

  • Scientist
  • ptrangenstein@arg.org 510-898-5839
  • External Bios: Research Gate Link | Download CV (pdf) | Google Scholar| LinkedIn
  • EDUCATION

    Pamela Trangenstein earned her BA in Psychology with minors in Printmaking/Drawing and Photography from Washington University in St. Louis. She completed both an MPH in Mental Health and a PhD in Health, Behavior, and Society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she also completed a CDC-funded predoctoral fellowship in alcohol epidemiology at the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth. After graduation, she completed an NIAAA-funded postdoctoral fellowship in alcohol epidemiology and problems at the University of California, Berkeley.
  • RESEARCH FOCUS

    Pamela’s research focuses on neighborhood and policy factors that shape substance use and related health outcomes, namely violence. She possesses particular expertise in the ways alcohol, cannabis, and tobacco availability, marketing, and regulation influence consumption patterns and injury across communities and sub-populations. Pamela has a deep interest in content areas and research methods that can support evidence-based policy and programmatic decision-making. Her work often uses large-scale administrative and survey data to inform prevention strategies and improve program effectiveness. She also enjoys drawing on her artistic training to enhance public health communication and data visualization, making research more accessible and engaging for diverse audiences. Current projects include national evaluations of alcohol policy impacts, reports on preventing underage drinking, and the development of tools to monitor retail environments.

  • Pamela Trangenstein is a scientist at the Alcohol Research Group with 15+ years of experience in substance use research, policy evaluation, and public health communication. Her work bridges data analysis and policy application, providing actionable insights for local, national, and international audiences.

    At ARG, Pamela has led projects examining alcohol and cannabis policies, harms related to alcohol’s effects on others, and the dynamics of retail environments. Prior to joining ARG, she was a faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she conducted research on substance use prevention and taught a graduate course on translating research into action. She also has experience working with national organizations, local and state governments, and advisory groups to develop technical reports, public health guidance, and stakeholder communication materials. Her research has been cited in policy debates from Baltimore to Alaska.

    An active collaborator and mentor, Pamela is dedicated to supporting early-career researchers. She is currently Assistant Director for Training for the ARG pre- and postdoctoral training program, and she coordinated the WHO Scientific research and writing mentorship initiative towards diversity in research on alcohol control policies.

Areas of Expertise

Environment
Policy
Epidemiology
Disparities
Health
Methodology

FEATURED PROJECTS

Harms To Others from Drinking Among College Students

Co-Investigator and Sub-Contract Principal Investigator

Alcohol's Harms to Others among US Adults: Individual and Contextual Effects

Associate Scientist

Impacts of Recreational Marijuana Legalization and Retail Outlets in Washington

Scientist

IN THE NEWS

See All News
In the News: To Battle the Bullet, Baltimore Goes After the Bottle

Research by Pamela Trangenstein shows a significant association between alcohol outlet density and increased violent crime rates.Learn more

BI: Some States Crack Down on Alcohol That Looks Like Juice

Two states are cracking down on alcoholic beverages that they say could be mistaken for juice, especially by parents looking for something suitable for their kids. Multiple beverage companies have…Learn more


PUBLICATIONS

See All Publications
Linking historical discriminatory housing patterns to the contemporary alcohol environment


Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy, 2023

Delta-8, Delta-10, HHC, THC-O, THCP, and THCV: What should we call these products?


Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 2023

Characteristics associated with buying alcohol to-go and for delivery during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic among a national sample of US adults


Drug and Alcohol Review, 2023

A content analysis of cannabis company adherence to marketing requirements in four states


Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 2022

Gender and sexual identity and harms from others’ drinking among US college students: Results from a multi-campus survey


Journal of American College Health, 2022

Cannabis marketing and problematic cannabis use among adolescents


Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 2021

Alcohol policy scores and alcohol-attributable homicide in a sample of 150 WHO member states


American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2021

Company-specific revenues from underage drinking


Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 2021

Association between state-level alcohol availability and taxation policies on the prevalence of alcohol-related harms to persons other than the drinker in the USA, 2000-2015


Drug and Alcohol Review, 2020

Looking back and moving forward: The evolution and potential opportunities for the future of alcohol outlet access measurement


Addiction Research and Theory, 2020

What’s next for WHO’s Global Strategy to Reduce Harmful Use of Alcohol?


WHO Bulletin, 2020

Alcohol advertising and violence


American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2020

The violence prevention potential of reducing alcohol outlet access in Baltimore, MD


Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 2020

Exposure to cannabis marketing in social and traditional media and past-year use among adolescents in states with legal retail cannabis


The Journal of Adolescent Health, 2020

Active cannabis marketing & adolescent past-year cannabis use


Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 2019

Methods for evaluating the association between alcohol outlet access and violent crime


Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 2019

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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