This submission proposes an alcohol epidemiological survey of four national groups of Hispanics: Mexican Americans, Cuban Americans, Puerto Rieans and CentraFSouth Americans. Respondents (1500 in each group) will be randomly selected from the household population and interviewed in selected geographical areas of the country. The proposed survey has the following aims: 1) To characterize drinking patterns, frequent heavy drinking and drunkenness, and to identify the sociodemographic correlates of these patterns of drinking. 2) To examine attitudes toward drinking and drunkenness and alcohol-related expectancies, and to establish the relationship between these two areas of cognition and drinking. 3) To evaluate the association between acculturation, acculturation stress, drinking patterns, frequent heavy drinking and alcohol-related cognitions (attitudes, expectancies) in each of the four national groups under study. 4) To evaluate structural models that postulate the relationships among the factors discussed in specific aims 1 to 3 and the relationship between these factors and three measures of alcohol consumption: abstention versus drinking, number of drinks consumed per month, and frequent heavy drinking. 5) To examine the prevalence of alcohol-related problems, alcohol dependence; to establish the drinking and sociodemographic correlates of dependence; and to assess the relationship between alcohol dependence and alcohol-related problems. 6) To examine the relationship between alcohol-related problems, alcohol abuse/dependence and drinking at the group level, using indicators of drinking (e.g., mean consumption per capita) that represent amount of alcohol consumed not by individuals but by sociodemographic groups defined by gender, ethuicity and age, 7) To examine the rate of arrests for driving under the influence (DUI) and undetected DUI (driving after having drunk enough to be in trouble if stopped by police) as well as other DUI-related areas such as number of drinks necessary to affect driving in the four groups under study. Results from this study will fill a major gap in epidemiology among U.S. Hispanics, and will have implications for the development of prevention interventions.
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