COLLABORATIVE ALCOHOL-RELATED LONGITUDINAL PROJECT

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Continued support is requested for the Collaborative Alcohol-Related Longitudinal Project--a 3 year project originally funded April 1, 1987-- which has the overall objective of evaluating the replicability of epidemiological and explanatory research on alcohol consumption and problems. The project has assembled primary data (recorded in standardized format) from 41 longitudinal data sets, representing 15 countries, with a multidisciplinary collegium to test critical hypotheses in alcohol studies. The rationale for establishing the Collaborative Alcohol-Related Longitudinal Project was based on the critical need to systematically determine the extent to which results from longitudinal studies can be replicated across age cohorts, historical periods, or culture in the description and prediction of drinking patterns and problems. The research questions are organized around a model which explores interrelationships between drinking patterns and problems, chronological age, culture, and history. Five broad research agendas are addressed by the project: (1) The prevalence, incidence and chronicity of drinking patterns and problems by age and sex are examined to determine if these patterns are consistent across data sets, and independent of the effects of birth cohort, historical period and culture; (2) Exogenous factors--biological, psychological and sociological--are examined within age strata to identify factors which initiate and alter drinking careers across cohorts, history and culture; (3) Adult drinking problems are examined on the basis of a socio-behavioral model of factors originally measured in childhood and adolescence. In particular, this analysis is designed to determine the degree to which "antisocial youthful behavior" is a consistent predictor os adult drinking problems across data sets including significant historical and cultural variation; (4) Adult drinking problems are examined on the basis of parental drinking and alcohol problems using adoptee and general population designs. Using adoptee studies, the hypothesized inter- generational biological link is assessed for possible selection bias and cohort effects; using general population studies, the interaction of parental drinking practices and other factors in the life course is tested. Interdisciplinary teams work on both questions, forging a link between two disparate approaches to the subject; (5) The impact of aggregate-level factors as potential explanations for change in individual level drinking behavior is assessed across multiple longitudinal studies. The request for support for the major analysis phase is justified by (a) reiterating the project's scientific importance, (b) demonstrating that the task of recoding, coordinating, and analyzing the 41 longitudinal data sets, simultaneously, has involved significant ground breaking and labor- intensive work for which the initial period of funding has been inadequate to complete the original application's substantive goals, and (c) demonstrating the scientific and pragmatic significance of the analyses which have been performed to date.