Alcohol measurement methodology in epidemiology: recent advances and opportunities

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 retr...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Addiction (Abingdon, England) England), 2008-07, Vol.103 (7), p.1082-1099
Main Authors: Greenfield, Thomas K., Kerr, William C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Addiction
Addictive behaviors
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Alcohol consumption
Alcohol Drinking - epidemiology
Alcohol use
Alcohol-Related Disorders - epidemiology
Alcoholism
assessment
Biological and medical sciences
Clinical psychology
drinking pattern
Drug addiction
Epidemiology
Ethanol - analysis
Ethyl alcohol
Female
General aspects
Humans
Male
Measurement
Measurement techniques
Medical sciences
Methodology
Patient Compliance
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Public Health
Public health. Hygiene
Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine
Research methodology
Research methods
Retrospective questions
self report
Social problems
surveys
Toxicology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary: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.
ISSN:0965-2140
1360-0443
DOI:10.1111/j.1360-0443.2008.02197.x