Alcohol Measurement Methodology in Epidemiology: Recent Advances and Opportunities

Overview

Journal Addiction

Specialty Psychiatry

Date 2008 Apr 22

PMID 18422826

Citations 159

Authors

Thomas K Greenfield

William C Kerr

Affiliations

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Abstract

Aim: To review and discuss measurement issues in survey assessment of alcohol consumption for epidemiological studies.

Methods: The following areas are considered: implications of cognitive studies of question answering such as self-referenced schemata of drinking, reference period and retrospective recall, as well as the assets and liabilities of types of current (e.g. food frequency, quantity-frequency, graduated frequencies and heavy drinking indicators) and life-time drinking measures. Finally we consider units of measurement and improving measurement by detailing the ethanol content of drinks in natural settings.

Results And Conclusions: Cognitive studies suggest inherent limitations in the measurement enterprise, yet diary studies show promise of broadly validating methods that assess a range of drinking amounts per occasion; improvements in survey measures of drinking in the life course are indicated; attending in detail to on- and off-premise drink pour sizes and ethanol concentrations of various beverages shows promise of narrowing the coverage gap plaguing survey alcohol measurement.

Citing Articles

Changes in US drinking and alcohol use disorders associated with social, health, and economic impacts of COVID-19.

Kerr W, Ye Y, Martinez P, Karriker-Jaffe K, Patterson D, Greenfield T Alcohol Alcohol. 2024; 60(1).

PMID: 39657075 PMC: 11630734. DOI: 10.1093/alcalc/agae082.

Alcohol consumption trajectories and risk of breast cancer among postmenopausal women: a Danish cohort study.

Antoniussen C, Proust-Lima C, Ibsen D, Olsen A, Overvad K, Tjonneland A Eur J Epidemiol. 2024; 39(12):1353-1362.

PMID: 39630402 PMC: 11680656. DOI: 10.1007/s10654-024-01179-5.

Long-term trends in beverage-specific drinking in the National Alcohol Surveys: Differences by sex, age, and race and ethnicity.

Kerr W, Lui C, Ye Y, Li L, Greenfield T, Karriker-Jaffe K Alcohol Clin Exp Res (Hoboken). 2024; 48(7):1322-1335.

PMID: 38658368 PMC: 11236498. DOI: 10.1111/acer.15335.

Association between Alcohol Consumption and Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease Based on Alcohol Flushing Response in Men: The Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2019-2021.

Kang D, Oh S Nutrients. 2023; 15(18).

PMID: 37764685 PMC: 10535860. DOI: 10.3390/nu15183901.

The effect of alcohol consumption on all-cause mortality in 70-year-olds in the context of other lifestyle risk factors: results from the Gothenburg H70 birth cohort study.

Ahlner F, Falk Erhag H, Johansson L, Samuelsson J, Wetterberg H, Mellqvist Fassberg M BMC Geriatr. 2023; 23(1):523.

PMID: 37641022 PMC: 10464006. DOI: 10.1186/s12877-023-04227-z.

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