PROBLEM DRINKING IN WOMEN--A NATIONAL LONGITUDINAL STUDY

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This application proposes to increase knowledge about women's drinking by conducting a lO-year followup survey of a stratified national probability sample of women initially interviewed in 1981 (with a subsample reinterviewed in 1986). The 1991 survey will also include a new sample of young women age 21-30. Specific aims are (1) to identify stability or change in women's drinking behavior during the 1981-1991 decade; (2) to estimate age, period, and cohort effects on women's drinking; (3) to evaluate the reliability of retrospective lifetime drinking histories over a lO- year period; (4) to develop multivariate time-ordered models of the etiology of problem drinking in women; and (5) to evaluate how the timing and duration of life changes affect women's drinking and drinking problems. Major preliminary tasks for the 1991 survey will include preparatory analyses of 1986 data and early locating of followup respondents. The 1991 sample will consist of approximately 760 women previously interviewed in 1981 and approximately 368 new respondents aged 21- 30 in 1991. Professional interviewers will conduct the 75-minute followup interviews, which will repeat questions from the 1981 and 1986 surveys concerning current drinking and drinking problems; lifetime drinking history; and changes in employment, marital, and family roles since 1981. Other questions will measure personality, social-environmental, and life-historical variables related to drinking in the 1981 and 1986 surveys, including self-concept, depression, sexual and reproductive experience, and relationships with significant others. Data analysis will include evaluation of time trends in women's drinking; evaluation of age, period, and cohort effects; estimation of reliability and bias in recall of drinking behavior and related experiences; construction of multivariate time-ordered models of drinking antecedents and consequences; and investigation of timing and duration of an- tecedents and consequences in relation to drinking behavior. The 1991 followup survey will produce the first longitudinal data on drinking and drinking problems from a representative national sample of U.S. adult women. The survey's findings regarding patterns, antecedents, and consequences of drinking problems in women can help target treatment and prevention programs more precisely to the special characteristics of women with and at risk for drinking-related problems.