National Alcohol Surveys: Advancing Epidemiologic Analyses of 21st Century Drinking

Public Health Institute, Oakland CA

Investigators

Linked publications, trials & patents

Abstract

Hazardous alcohol use remains one of the most common preventable causes of morbidity and mortality in the US, and it manifests population variations. Nationally representative surveys repeated over time provide a means to advance survey methods by meeting challenges to survey research, to monitor trends in alcohol use overall and in US population sub-groups, and to investigate timely health topics related to alcohol. The Alcohol Research Group and its Center have conducted a series of National Alcohol Surveys (NAS) for forty years and are proposing in this Project to conduct the 15th edition of the NAS in 2023-2024 (termed N15). Through the implementation of the N15 we will respond to challenges to modern-day survey research by employing a multi-mode, adaptive survey design. This will include a fully web-based survey using address-based sampling, and probability and non-probability web panels. Further, this will be the first NAS to include biosample collection using dried blood spots (DBS). Including an additional NAS in the series will expand the trend data available for framing recent changes in alcohol consumption patterns, which is also essential for age-period-cohort (APC) models for understanding components of these trends. With NAS series data from 2000-2020 we propose to evaluate subgroup differences in alcohol use and alcohol problems, and risk relationships between alcohol use patterns and problems using instrumental variable methods. Capitalizing on the expanded trends data, we propose to examine trends for total and beverage-specific alcohol volume, AUD, and co-use of alcohol with cannabis and other drugs from 1979 to 2024 APC. Regarding the study of timely health topics related to alcohol, psychological distress (PD) is a common problem and alcohol use is a known risk factor. However, less well understood are the individual- and area-level moderators and biological mediators of this relationship. Collecting DBS samples will enable the study of inflammation as a mediator of the relationship, which could inform future research and prevention interventions, while a better understanding of the moderators of this relationship could be used to help recognize groups in need of interventions. In summary, this project proposes data collection and analyses that can advance both methodological issues and substantive research questions with the aim of better understanding 21st century drinking and its trends, correlates and consequences.