Indicators Of Alcohol Problems Research Articles

ALCOHOL RELATED PROBLEMS IN RUSSIA AND BELARUS: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF TRENDS

Goal: in present article comparative analysis of trends in alcohol-related problems rates (violent mortality, fatal alcohol poisonings, alcoholic psychoses), alcohol sales per capita, socioeconomic parameters in Russia and Belarus in soviet (1970-1991) and post-soviet (1992-2015) periods were analyzed.
 Materials and methods. As indicators of alcohol problems were used the mortality rate from external causes, the mortality rate from acute alcohol poisoning and the incidence of alcoholic psychoses. As an integral indicator characterizing the health status of the population was used the indicator of life expectancy at birth.
 Results: the results of correlation analysis suggest that alcohol sales is a statistically significant associated with alcohol-related problems rates in both countries during the Soviet period. However, there was no relationship between this variables during the post-Soviet period. The outcomes of this study indicate that psychosocial distress and macroeconomy were important determinants of fluctuations in alcohol-related problems rates in both countries. In the context of alcohol policy this mean that decrease in economic and physical availability of alcohol should be considered as a main priority.

The link between drinking and gambling among undergraduate university students.

The purpose of this research was to explore different aspects of the link between alcohol use and gambling among undergraduate university students (N = 121). Potential aspects of the link examined included level of involvement in each behavior, consequences, motives for involvement, and impaired control over involvement. Results confirmed that drinking and gambling among university students are associated, consistent with the expectations of a problem syndrome model. The strongest link was between general dimensions of problematic involvement for both behaviors. Students who drink to cope and have other indicators of alcohol problems are more likely to gamble to cope, gamble to win money, and have higher gambling involvement and gambling-related problems. However, the salience of drinking and gambling to cope in this relationship is an interesting finding that needs further exploration and extension to other problem behaviors.

Implementing an Ideology. A Case Study from Leicestershire, England

In the late 1970s, we established for the county of Leicestershire in England (pop. 850,000) what was then a highly innovative service for problem drinkers. It was based upon a number of core beliefs about the nature of people with alcohol problems and about what would be helpful for them. Most notably it rejected the concept of “alcoholism” and treated the clients (“customers”) at all times as being responsible and therefore able to make decisions about what would be helpful for them. It was a community based tiered service, non-abstinence oriented and client demand led. That system of intervention generated a burgeoning referral rate and there was evidence that compared with neighbouring similar counties, the service may have had a positive impact on the long term morbidity and mortality related to alcohol use. The data available were correlational and incomplete but were encouraging. Changes in the style of provision in the neighbouring counties and administrative and structural changes in health and social services nationally meant that it was not possible to continue the service in its comprehensive form, and tracking changes in the indirect indicators of alcohol problems became unfeasible. The natural experiment was terminated by factors beyond our control. Nonetheless, the service still exists, though in a truncated form. Its presence played a part in the development of the template for local alcohol service provision in Britain.

DO DRINKING SURVEYS PREDICT CHANGES IN POPULATION-BASED ALCOHOL PROBLEM INDICATORS?

We examined per capita alcohol consumption and survey-based measures of alcohol use in Ontario in relation to indicators of alcohol problems for the period 1977-1997. Per capita consumption and percentage of daily drinkers were significantly related to problem indicators, but percentage of drinkers and percentage of heavy drinkers were not. Of the measures we examined, per capita consumption was the strongest indicator of alcohol problems.

Can School Alcohol Education Programmes Contribute to Declines in Drinking Among Students?

In Ontario, declines in alcohol use and related measures such as heavy drinking and drinking-driving among students have occurred since 1979. Although the reasons for these declines remain unclear, over the same period the numbers of students exposed to alcohol education in schools has increased substantially. In an effort to estimate what proportion of the declines in alcohol-related behaviours among students might be due to the increase in alcohol education, we used an effect size estimate of 0.17 derived from meta-analytic studies to calculate the number of students beneficially influenced by the increase in alcohol education. The results suggested that the proportion of the declines accounted for by the increase in alcohol education was modest, but was larger for the more serious indicators of alcohol problems.

Alcohol-related blackouts in a medical practice.

One hundred thirty-five individuals seeking help for an alcohol or drug problem from a family physician completed a self-report questionnaire. Eighty-six percent of respondents reported having experienced alcohol-related blackouts. Blackouts were found to be most strongly related to severity of alcohol problems. They were not clearly early-stage nor middle-stage indicators of alcohol problems and were not associated with a variety of neuropsychological indicators.

Social stress, normative constraints and alcohol problems in American States

Robert Bales' theory explains rates of alcoholism in populations by the combination of socially induced stress and tension together with a normative system that promotes the use of alcohol for releasing that tension. This paper provides the first systematic test of that theory by combining the variables of social stress and normative approval of alcohol within the same research design. Ecological correlations are used with the 50 states as units of analysis. Stress was measured by a ‘state stress index’ based on 15 stressful ‘life events’ aggregated to the state level. Events vary from rates of divorce to community disaster. Normative constraints on drinking were measured by a multi-indicator proscriptive norms index based on religious composition and legal impediments to the purchase and consumption of alcohol. The states were divided into quartiles based on normative constraints surrounding alcohol use from proscriptive to permissive. Alcohol problems were measured by three indicators of heavy drinking and three indicators of alcohol related arrests. All but one of the 24 correlations between the state stress index and the indicators of alcohol problems were highest within the context of strong cultural support for the use of alcohol, thus supporting Bales' original theory. For the arrest variables there was also a clear pattern of curvilinearity, with a second distinct ‘peak’ in the correlations within the polar opposite quartile of proscriptive states. Competing explanations for the pattern are discussed including the ‘social control’ hypothesis and the ‘ambivalence’ hypothesis.