This is an invited proposal to supplement the NIMH funded R and D Center for Pacific Asian American Mental Health Research.
The aim of the proposal is to develop research capabilities on alcohol research within the framework of the Center. The Center, under the direction of the Director, will appoint a mid-career research scientist, to be referred to as the Alcohol Scholar, to provide the direction and expertise in identifying research needs, designing research, submitting grant proposals, and conducting research on alcohol use and abuse by Asian Americans. The amount of $50,000 a year for five years is requested to initiate the alcohol research program and recruit the Scholar. The alcohol component of the Center will fit easily with the current research foci and direction of the Center. Analysis of the 1980 Census yields information needed to monitor demographically determined risk factors of a changing minority population with respect to health and mental health behavior. The epidemiological studies being conducted are particularly relevant to alcohol research since the translated instrument, the DIS-III, used in China and in New York's Chinatown, has questions on alcohol use. Alcohol use data have been coded, keypunched, and some parts tabulated. There are also studies being conducted on high risk groups. All these studies are relevant since it is our assumption that risk factors, mediators to stresses, and tension management relative to mental health also operate in alcohol use and abuse. We seek answers to several questions on alcohol use by Pacific/Asian Americans with regards to prevalence, its relationship to life events, the role of the flushing phenomenon, explanations of drinking behavior (biological, cultural, social structural), and the high risk groups within the P/AA populations.
| Schwartz, L S; Taylor, J R (1989) Attitudes of mental health professionals toward alcoholism recognition and treatment. Am J Drug Alcohol Abuse 15:321-37 |
