Statistics

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)

Popular vs Scholarly Journal Articles

For our IM 204 class we where asked to find a popular magazine article and a scholarly journal article about the population we are searching for (mine being of course alcoholics/ism) and cite them using APA works format.

References

Bailly, R. C., Carman, R. S., & Forslund, M. A. (1991). Gender Differences in Drinking Motivations and Outcomes. Journal Of Psychology, 125(6), 649.

Study finds alcohol abuse or dependence causes depression, not vice versa. (2009). Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly, 21(10), 1-3.

The one which was cited first Gender Differences in Drinking Motivations and Outcomes is the scholarly journal, and the second one Study finds alcohol abuse or dependence causes depression, not vice versa was the popular magazine.  

In Gender Differences in Drinking Motivations and Outcomes the article focused on investigating gender differences in the relationship of power needs and drinking (basically men drink to show dominance and power and women drink more so to be assertive and sociable).   In the scholarly journal the article went into depth on the topic and used more of an academic language compared to that of the popular magazine article which was geared more towards presenting information in an easily understood manner for general audiences.  And Study finds alcohol abuse or dependence causes depression, not vice versa is quite self explanatory as to what it is about from the title.  The popular magazine focused more on brief non technical articles about alcoholism and drug abuse in general (because it is published weekly) so it does not contain a very specific focus on alcoholism alone.  The scholarly journal had its own research presented in the article, and contained charts to explain that information. And the scholarly journal had a list of references to credit the information it was presenting and authors who had wrote the article, while the popular magazine on the other hand had no references or authors listed  whatsoever.