EPIDEMIOLOGY & PREVENTION OF ALCOHOL ABUSE & ALCOHOLISM

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The research plan includes four projects: 1) To extend and strengthen a continuing program of epidemiology and prevention research on suspected causal associations between educational achievement and the development of alcohol abuse and dependence among Afro-Americans. This proposed project would entail secondary analyses of the Epidemiologic Catchment Area surveys as well as other community- based datasets. 2) To evaluate the relationship of alcohol use with educational achievement among adolescents by analyzing data from a community based study of Baltimore city elementary school children. this project would provide information on the temporal association of school achievement with the initiation of alcohol use, and on the relationship of alcohol use initiation with the steps that translate that initiation to problem drinking in adolescence. 3) To examine familial determinants of alcohol use and problem drinking among adolescents by implementing a case-cohort study to an ongoing study of the initiation of alcohol and drug use among Baltimore City elementary school children. This project would incorporate interviews of families to elicit information regarding family history of alcohol, illicit drug use and psychiatric disorders. 4) To develop and submit an RO1 application to initiate a prevention or early intervention trial in the final stages of this award based ont he findings of the earlier projects. The public health importance of the proposed research plan rests in part upon possibilities for identifying groups at increased risk of alcohol disorders. In particular, because education is a potentially modifiable characteristic, the results should increase the knowledge base necessary to build better preventive and ameliorative interventions that ultimately might reduce the prevalence of alcohol abuse or alcohol dependence.