Approaches for Synthesizing Data in Alcohol Research

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 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The broad goal of this proposal is to apply different methods for integrating data to alcohol research. Specifically, meta-analysis and integrative data analysis (IDA) will be used to answer to different research questions relating to the assessment of familial of alcoholism. This objective has implications across disciplines given that these methods can be applied to almost any topic within alcohol research and other fields. Specific Aims The first project, a meta-analysis on children of alcoholics (MOCA), consists of synthesizing the literature to further characterize the relationship between parental alcoholism and traits related to impulsivity in offspring and moderators of this relationship. The goal of MOCA is to identify, specifically, which traits related to impulsivity are associated with having a family history of parental alcoholism. Moderators that will be investigated include study characteristics such as the operationalization of parental alcoholism (e.g., child report of parent's alcohol problems versus assessing parent for alcohol problems). These objectives will be met through the utilization of advanced techniques such as meta-analytic multilevel modeling. The second project, an integrative data analysis of studies assessing lifetime alcohol use disorder (IDA-LAUD), will consist of integrating two data sets with multiple assessments of lifetime alcohol use disorder (AUD). The goal of this project is to further characterize reliabilit problems relating to false negatives in the assessment of lifetime AUD in more representative data sets. Although false negatives are a relatively low base rate phenomenon, the ramifications of its occurrence are severe. Utilizing IDA is the logical next step for further research in this area. Significance The results from MOCA will provide valuable information on the relationship between having a family history of parental alcoholism and impulsivity, which could be used to inform personality- tailored intervention programs. Additionally, the results from IDA-LAUD will provide valuable information on limitations in the assessment of lifetime AUD, which can be used to improve methods for assessing this and other related disorders.