Special Issue "Environmental Research on Alcohol: Public Health Perspectives"

Guest Editor
Dr. Thomas K. Greenfield
Alcohol Research Group, Public Health Institute, 6475 Christie Ave., Ste 400, Emeryville, CA 94608, USA
Website: http://www.arg.org/staff/staff_detail.php?id=4
E-Mail:
Interests: the epidemiology of alcohol use and problems; alcohol policy studies; regulatory environments and externalities; alcohol-related problem and consumption measurement; drinking patterns and mortality, alcohol related health disparities; cultural and ethnic variations in drinking behavior; services research and consumer satisfaction with services

Editorial Advisor
Dr. Joris Cornelis Verster
Utrecht Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences, Utrecht University, PoBox 80082, 3508TB Utrecht, The Netherlands
E-Mail:
Interests: effects of drugs on driving and traffic safety; drug abuse and addiction; sleep and sleep disorders

Dear Colleagues,

Environments affect alcohol consumption patterns and the development of alcoholism (or alcohol dependence) and these human characteristics and conditions in turn impact the environment in both social and physical ways, including producing drinking externalities. Public health alcohol issues inherently involve agents (e.g., contaminated beverages), the host’s bio-psycho-social makeup and typical intake patterns, embedded or acting in environments—physical, social and drinking contexts. Environments can be hazardous, harmful, restraining of choices or rehabilitative, for example effects of dysfunctional or positive family rules; organizational, governmental or social regulations; drinking venues affecting pour sizes, drinking rates, and risks of assault or injury; taxation and price regimes; and social networks. Because humans move between and may select or be trapped by surroundings, complex interactions occur. Furthermore, environmental impacts depend upon life-course stage, time structured risk opportunities, from early rearing, adolescent and young adult groups though lifetime exposures. We are interested too in environmental controls, wet or dry environments, policy and community interventions, and mutual help and living groups supporting sobriety. We seek papers for the special edition of IJERPH dealing with such issues and methodologies like geographic and other techniques and measurement approaches for improving environmental studies of alcohol and alcoholism.

Dr. Thomas K. Greenfield
Guest Editor

• - free for readers, with low publishing fees paid by authors or their institutions
• Free publication for manuscripts submitted by end of 2008.
• Rapid publication: accepted papers are immediately published online (we started to publish papers quickly since September 2008). The printed edition will only be continued for the Proceedings of the yearly International Symposiums on Recent Advances in Environmental Health Research starting 2009.

Related Special Issue:
Alcohol and Public Health

Submission

The Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601) was launched in 2004 and is an Open Access journal, with the main Editorial Office located in Basel, Switzerland. It has been accepted for coverage in Science Citation Index Expanded, available as the Web of Science and in Current Contents/Agriculture, Biology, and Environmental Sciences. Coverage will begin with the 2009 issues. This journal is also abstracted and indexed very rapidly by Chemical Abstracts, MedLine/PubMed and EMBASE. The IJERPH maintains a rapid editorial procedure and a rigorous peer-review system. Well written papers have been peer-reviewed and published in less than 4 weeks from manuscript submission. All papers published in IJERPH have DOI numbers.

All papers should be submitted to ijerph@mdpi.org with copy to the guest editor. To be published continuously until the deadline and papers will be listed together at this special issue website.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a paper. Open Access publication fees are 300 CHF per paper. English correction fees (250 CHF) will be added in certain cases (550 CHF per paper for those papers that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.).

• alcohol
• alcoholism
• drinking context
• policy
• environment
• social network
• externalities
• methodology

Type of Paper: Article
Title: The Role of Environmental Factors in Co-occurrence Alcohol Dependence and Mood Disorders
Author: Nancy Low
Affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, 1033 Pine Ave West, Montreal, Quebec H3A 1A1, Canada; E-mail: nancy.low@mcgill.ca
Abstract: It has been established that alcohol dependence is frequently concurrent with mood disorders. Less understood, however, is the specific role of environmental factors in this association between alcohol dependence and concurrent mood disorders. This analysis will use a nationally representative sample of 37 000 subjects assessed using standardized psychiatric diagnostic assessments to examine the specificity of environmental factors (stress and social support)in the association between alcohol dependence and concurrent mania and depression.

Type of Paper: Article
Title: Project MINDFUL – Drunken Driving: Primary Prevention, Rehabilitation, Education and Awareness in the Driving School Setting
Author: Johannes Klopf
Affiliation: Department of Forensic Neuropsychiatry, University of Salzburg, Ignaz-Harrer Strasse 79, A-5020 Salzburg, Austria; E-mail: birgitta.kofler-westergren@sbg.ac.at
Abstract: The project MINDFUL is designated as a long-term and extensive intervention with emphasis on driving schools. The education module "Alcohol in Traffic" offers the suitable introduction to the topic "Total breakdown after disqualification from driving". Affected people, long-time abstinent alcoholics, deliver a very personal and authentic self-report in the sense of shocking information about their alcohol dependency with its typical stages and losses suffered along the process of disease. The positive feedback from all involved in the project together with all discussions and insights produced represent valuable multiplicators not only for the age spectrum involved. This project is aimed at producing both primary preventive, rehabilitative as well as awareness increasing effects on a broad basis. For the purpose of process evaluation, questionnaires were administered immediately after completing the action as well as one year later. Significantly more participants in the project reported that they had reduced their alcohol consumption during the past 12 months. Moreover, they had been less frequently involved in accidents, had committed less speeding, and also been less tempted to drink and drive. In this project, the close correlation between drunken driving and problems with alcohol is conveyed to the juvenile driving licence candidate. The participants differ in their opinions about drunken driving significantly from non-participants even 12 months after receiving their driving licence. Thus, the aura of drunken driving as a pardonable offence and its minimization is successfully counteracted. The results from a two-stage inquiry of driving scholars participating in the alcohol prevention project show improved driving and drinking behavior. Therefore, this project has positive effects on the behavior of juveniles in traffic.

Type of Paper: Article
Title: The Influence of Parents Personality Measured by TCI on Course of Alcoholism Characterized by Lesch and Cloninger's Typologies
Authors: Agnieszka Samochowiec ^1,2, Anna Grzywacz ¹, Jerzy Samochowiec ¹
Affiliations: ¹ Department of Psychiatry, Pomeranian Medical University, Poland; E-Mail: samoj@sci.pam.szczecin.pl (J.S.)
² MSKP, The University of Szczecin, Poland
Abstract: Aim: There have been so far no reports in the literature that would discuss how parents' personality characteristics can affect certain predispositions to alcohol dependence in the offspring and can trigger some specific mechanisms of alcohol dependence described in typology developed by R. Cloninger and O.M. Lesch as well as the possibility of recognising their genotypes DRD4 and 5HTT. Methods: A total of 80 polish, caucasian families were investigated. Fathers were mean age: 61.7±10.8 and the mothers were: mean age: 59 ±10 years. The alcohol dependent probands were male, with confirmed biological descent, mean age: 35.2 ± 9.7 years. In all participants Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) was performed. Characterization of alcohol dependence and course of withdrawal were obtained by SSAGA. Specially designed questionnaires based on Cloninger and Lesch typology were used. The essential data about both parents were collected and AUDIT was performed. DRD4 and 5HTT_LPR genes polymorphisms were determined by PCR and TDT test was calculated. Results: TDT analysis showed no differences in the transmission of alleles of 5HTT_LPR and DRD4 genes in the investigated families. The analysis of personality profiles evaluated by means of Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) confirmed no statistically significant relations between two groups of probands characterized as 1 and 2 subtypes of alcoholics according to Cloninger's typology. Statistically significant difference was recorded between the scores for groups I and II classified according to Lesch's typology in dimensions NS2- impulsiveness – and NS4 - disorderliness. The fathers of probands characterized as type I according to Cloninger had statistically lower scores in dimension C - cooperativeness in compare to fathers type II. The mothers type I alcoholics according to Cloninger had statistically lower scores in dimension HA2 in comparison with the type II alcoholic' mothers. In conclusion: it can be stated that there is no clear or typical personality profile in parents of alcoholics and alcoholics defined as type I and type II according to Lesch's or Cloninger typology.

Title: Comparison between ALDH2 Glu504Lys Polymorphism and Facial Flushing After Alcohol Consumption for the Risk of Upper Aerodigestive Tract Cancer Risk in a Japanese Population.
Authors: Isao Oze and Keitaro Matsuo
Affiliations: Division of Epidemiology and Prevention, Aichi Cancer Center Research Institute, 1-1 Kanokoden, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8681, Japan; E-Mails: kmatsuo@aichi-cc.jp, kmatsuo@post.harvard.edu
Abstract: Alcohol consumption is one of the most important risk factors for upper aerodigestive tract (UAT) cancer and there is convincing evidence that acetaldehyde, the first metabolite of ethanol, is responsible for the carcinogenic effect of ethanol on UAT cancers. In the East Asian populations, ALDH2 gene displays polymorphism (rs671, Glu504Lys) that modulates individual differences in acetaldehyde oxidizing capacity. Some people exhibit the flushing response after drinking alcohol beverage including facial flushing, palpitation, nausea, headache, drowsiness, breathlessness, discomfort and so on. Flushing response, considered to be caused by acetaldehydemia, has been postulated as a surrogate question for ALDH2 genotype; however, recent prospective cohort study conducted in Japan do not necessarily support this postulate. We conducted a large scale case-control study employing 961 upper aerodigestive tract cancer cases and 2883 non-cancer controls to examine whether flushing response by questionnaire can be a surrogate marker for ALDH2 polymorphism in Japanese population.

Type of Paper: Review
Title: Impact of Remission of Parental Alcoholism on Children of Alcoholic Parents
Author: Daniel Pilowsky
Affiliation: Department of Epidemiology & Psychiatry, University of Columbia, 100 Haven Ave., Suite 29-G, NY 10032, USA; E-Mail: dp14@columbia.edu
Abstract: Children of alcoholic parents are known to have a higher prevalence of psychiatric symptoms and impaired social functioning compared to children of non-alcoholic parents of similar backgrounds. What is not known, however, is whether a remission of parental alcoholism may benefit these children. The scant available research has significant limitations, most prominently, the almost exclusive focus on alcoholic fathers, even though a remission of maternal alcoholism might have a greater impact on children. The extant literature suggest that children of alcoholic fathers experience a decrease of psychiatric symptoms when their fathers become abstinent, and that preadolescents are more likely than adolescents to benefit from a remission of paternal alcoholism. The limited benefit reported in the case of adolescents might be explained by the greater influence of the peer group, and the gradual decrease of parental influence during this developmental stage.