The Unit of Family Studies has two major functions (1) to recruit and assess alcoholics, controls and their families, for various investigators within the Laboratory of Clinical Studies; and (2) to conduct psychosocial and psychobiological studies of alcoholic families and their individual members. The Unit staff continues to focus on coding and entering onto a computer the data collected since the inception of the Laboratory. A series of correlational studies comparing suicidal versus non-suicidal alcoholics on clinical, psychosocial and family variables has been carried out. In addition, the Unit has collected data on the adult offspring of alcoholics and non-alcoholics, black and white, respectively; pilot efforts for a follow-up of matched black and white former patients of our inpatient unit has begun. Unit staff has also been collaborating with the Section on Genetic Studies in identifying and phenotyping several pedigrees for linkage analysis. Clinical expertise in the psychiatric assessment of children has been developed.
