2012; Li et al. 2012) and poisoning/overdose deaths (White et al. 2011). People may be involved in traffic crashes or poisoning deaths at lower BALs if other drugs are present, and this may modify BAL levels used in establishing attributable fractions for motor-vehicle and poisoning deaths. Most national surveys selleck bio and many research projects inquire about alcohol and drug consumption separately not simultaneously. If alcohol and drugs pharmacologically interact, simultaneous-use questions should be considered. Third, it is important to calculate the secondhand harm alcohol misuse poses. Just as awareness of the secondhand negative consequences of passive smoke inhalation has heightened the public health resolve to curb smoking, learning about the secondhand effects of alcohol misuse may heighten the resolve to study and implement effective interventions to reduce alcohol misuse.

For example, 40 percent of people who die in traffic crashes involving drinking drivers in the United States are not driving. Half of the deaths in crashes involving drinking drivers under the age of 25 are those other than the driver. This has incited citizen activists and policymakers to pass more than 2,000 laws at the State and Federal levels to reduce alcohol-impaired driving (Hingson et al. 2003). Fourth, many prevention activities are implemented at the community level, and community-level data are needed to stimulate the planning and evaluation of those interventions (Hingson and White 2012). Yet most surveillance data-monitoring systems measure behavior and consequences at the State and Federal levels.

Strategies are needed to either facilitate more community-level data collection or to offer technical assistance to concerned communities and researchers so that they can collect their local data using standardized questions and sampling procedures for comparison with other communities, their State, and the Nation. Chronic Conditions When examining either acute-disease and chronic-disease mortality and morbidity, a variety of measurement challenges may produce underreporting. First, drinking levels reported in surveys account for only 40 to 60 percent of alcohol sales (Midanik 1982; World Health Organization [WHO] 2011). Underreporting may lead to underestimates of alcohol��s contribution to chronic disease (Meier et al. 2013).

Second, survey respondents often underestimate alcohol serving sizes, particularly when consumed in containers that vary from accepted standard drink sizes. Memory may become an issue after respondents have consumed so many drinks so rapidly that they incur partial memory lapses or total blackouts. Also, the duration Entinostat of time that respondents are asked to recall consumption can vary in different studies. In general, shorter time periods of recall (e.g., days and weeks) produce higher consumption, estimates than requests for monthly, yearly, or lifetime consumption.