For this assignment I had to look for statistical information/data from both a government document and a scholarly journal source. I looked for statistical information about the general onset of alcohol dependency for individuals in both areas.
The government document I located on The National Institute On Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. The document was entitled Twelve-month prevalence and population estimates of DSM-IV alcohol abuse by age, sex, and race-ethnicity: United States, 2001–2002 (NESARC)*. It focused on the age in which alcohol dependency can be seen as occurring in as well as what the ethnic/race group percentages where amount wise that could be seen as having alcohol dependency.
The Scholarly journal I located was more so about the ages in which alcohol dependency can be seen to occur; it was from the PEDIATRICS scholarly journal and was published in 2008 in a study entitled Age of Drinking Onset, Alcohol Use Disorders,Frequent Heavy Drinking, and Unintentionally Injuring Oneself and Others After Drinking.
In the government document it does tell you that the data was taken form the NIAAA 2001–2002 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NIAAA). Also that in certain ethnic/race groups that where studied age wise, some minority groups where included in that ethnic/race category. That is about all it tells you on how the data was collected/analyzed or what their intention was from this gathering of information in the first place. (Though if one would guess from the title it was to inform about the prevalence of alcohol dependency in certain age groups, ethnic groups, and genders of participants in the survey, which would mean they found something about this information to be interesting or of concern). I suppose the reason that the government document did not list how they analyzed this information and why they found it to be important is because the subject and the variety of their participants and information they found was so vast that to limit down the information they gave to explaining one sole thing would be difficult to do. So they want to allow others to interpret the findings to mean whatever they think the information is telling them about this population.
The scholarly journal on the other hand went into depth on where it was they got the information from and why it was they where collecting the information in the first place "From 2001 to 2002, in-person interviews were conducted with a national multistage probability sample of 43,093 adults aged 18 years older. From 2004 to 2005, of 39,959 eligible respondents, 34,653 were re-interviewed. The cumulative 2-survey response rate was 70.2%."(Hingson) And that their objective of publishing this journal was to "To explore whether early age of drinking onset is prospectively associated with respondents unintentionally injuring themselves and others when respondents were under the influence of alcohol, controlling for current alcohol dependence/abuse, frequency of consuming 5 drinks per occasion, and other demographic characteristics." (Hingson) So with the scholarly journal, why alcohol dependency based on age was thought to be an important thing to research was explained in the journal. The reason the data was explained in the journal is that the people who published it wanted to do a good job at explaining why they found this information to be important because it is a reflection of their work in the scientific community, so they would want to explain the smallest aspect of it to accredit the journal article.
References
Hingson, Ralph W. PEDIATRICS. Age of Drinking Onset, Alcohol Use Disorders,Frequent Heavy Drinking, and Unintentionally Injuring Oneself and Others After Drinking. June 1, 2009. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/123/6/1477.full.pdf. Retrieved April 10, 2012.
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).Twelve-month prevalence and population estimates of DSM-IV alcohol abuse by age, sex, and race-ethnicity: United States, 2001–2002 (NESARC)*. 2002. http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/Resources/DatabaseResources/QuickFacts/AlcoholDependence/Pages/abusdep1.aspx. Retrieved April 10, 2012.
(Could not correctly indent reference citing because blog not like allowing one to us the tab button in certain places)
Hi Taylor,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comparison of the statistics in the government document and the scholarly journal article. You are right--in most cases, the government provides data for reference, to allow the researchers to interpret that data as they see fit, or simply to provide a baseline of knowledge so that people have a rough estimate of what percentage of a population identifies a particular way or engages in a certain behavior. In the scholarly journal article, however, the researchers are collecting data in order to find answers to their own research question, or to test a hypothesis.
Out of curiosity, did the people who started drinking earlier in life have more or less probability of unintentional harm--or does it have more to do with the quantity of alcohol they consume in one sitting as opposed to the quantity consumed over time?
Sincerely,
Professor Wexelbaum
From what I got from the article the younger they started drinking (I believe it said when they started to have at least 5 drinks per week) the more likely they were to have an increased risk in their probability of unintentionally hurting someone. For the data it could be seen that if one started at or under the age of 14 it was more likely that they would come to be dependent on alcohol, as compared to starting at older ages when starting to drink,and the they had higher unintentional harm to themselves and others than the other age groups that where studied. So I believe it is saying that if they start drinking earlier in life it is more likely that over time they will begin to drink more and more which makes it more likely that they will harm themselves or others in the process.
ReplyDeleteThat is very interesting...thank you for the clarification!
ReplyDelete