NEWS:
Received
from Tim Stockwell, January 31, 2006
Kettil Bruun
Society Early Career Scientist Award
The Kettil Bruun Society is an
international and multidisciplinary society, aiming to promote social
and epidemiological research which fosters comparative understanding of
the social aspects of alcohol problems in different countries and across
different sub-populations.
The purpose of the KBS Early
Career Scientist Award is to recognize the excellence of the papers
presented by early career scientists at the KBS Annual Symposium held
each year in early June. The award is a cash prize of 250 Euros and two
years membership of the Kettil Bruun Society.
The best paper presented by an
early career scientist will be selected by a scientific committee, based
on its contribution to advancing knowledge in alcohol research and on
its theoretical and methodological quality.
The winner will be announced and
the award presented towards the end of the meeting.
Eligibility:
Applicants who:
- are students
studying for their masters or doctoral degree or early career scientists
who have obtained their doctoral degree within the last two years.
- are
presenting a paper as a first author.
Application
For the June 2006
award, applicants must send their full conference paper to Tim Stockwell,
KBS President (timstock@uvic.ca)
by May 1st along with a covering letter stating how long the
applicant has been engaged in social and/or epidemiological research on
alcohol and the year they obtained their PhD if applicable. NB Deadline
for submission of abstracts to this year’s annual symposium is March 1st
2006.
2006 Selection committee
Tim Stockwell , Henk Garretsen,
Deborah Dawson and Kate Graham.
Received from Maaria Lindblad, Nordic
Council for Alcohol and Drug Research (NAD), November 20, 2002
New
NAD publication
Room, Robin (Ed.): The Effects of Nordic Alcohol Policies – what
happens to drinking and harm when alcohol controls change? NAD publication
No. 42. Helsinki: Nordic Council for Alcohol and Drug Research (NAD)
See
New Publications page for details.
Received from Ingeborg Rossow and
posted 26 September 2002:
Dr. Zsuzsanna Elekes has been awarded the Golden
Cross of the Hungarian Republic for her outstanding research work in
the field of substance abuse epidemiology.
Zsuzsanna Elekes is a long time member of KBS and
well known to the society through many symposia over the years.
SIFA moves:
The National Institute for Alcohol and
Drug Research in Norway (SIFA) has moved to new quarters at:
Øvre Slottsgate 2B
0157 Oslo
Norway
From 1 January 2001 the institute will
be a little bigger and will change its Norwegian name to: Statens
Institutt for Rusmiddelforskning (abbreviated SIRUS). The English
name will be as before. We have got new
telephone numbers and e-mail addresses.
Knut Brofoss is appointed as Director
of the "new" institute, and Sturla Nordlund will be Research
Director.
Sturla Nordlund (via Robin
Room)
posted to the KBS listserve on
11 Jan 2001
Alcohol & Heart Health
Communication from NIAAA
Dear Colleague:
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and
Alcoholism (NIAAA) publishes the quarterly bulletin Alcohol Alert,
a summary of research findings for professionals. On behalf of NIAAA, I am
writing to inform you about the latest issue of Alcohol Alert,
"Alcohol and Coronary Heart Disease," which we believe will
interest you and your colleagues.
Research has revealed an association between
moderate alcohol consumption and lower risk for coronary heart disease (CHD).
This Alcohol Alert reviews evidence for this association, explores
lifestyle factors and physiological mechanisms that might suggest ways to
explain alcohol's apparent protective effects, and presents available data
on the balance between alcohol's beneficial and harmful effects on
health. Enoch Gordis, M.D., Director of NIAAA, reminds us that
"science has not confirmed that alcohol itself causes the lower
risk. The distinction between an association and a cause is
important."
NIAAA invites you to print a brief announcement
about the availability of "Alcohol and Coronary Heart Disease"
on your organization's Web-site as well as in your publications or
mailings. You may request quantities of this free bulletin for
distribution to your members by writing to the address below. To
access the Alcohol Alert online visit NIAAA's Web-site at
www.niaaa.nih.gov, where you will also find a variety of brochures and
pamphlets that outline effective steps to help reduce problem
drinking. The direct URL for the Alcohol Alert No. 45 is:
http://silk.nih.gov/silk/niaaa1/publication/aa45.htm
All issues of Alcohol Alert are in the
public domain and may be summarized or reprinted without permission.
Should you decide to publicize "Alcohol and Coronary Heart Disease
" to your colleagues, please inform me so that I can accurately track
the success of our efforts. This exchange will give you the
opportunity to provide your members with information from the lead Federal
agency conducting and supporting research in the alcohol field. I look
forward to your response. If you have any questions or would like to
discuss other ways to reach your colleagues with this important
information, please call me at (202) 842-7600, ext. 237 or e-mail me at
arcadmail2@csrincorp.com.
Sincerely,
Christopher S. Mohan
Marketing Coordinator
For copies of Alcohol Alert, please write:
NIAAA Publications Distribution Center
Attn: Alcohol Alert
P.O. Box 10686
Rockville, MD 20849-0686
ICAA Congress in Vienna--
A Brief Report
Received and posted, 24 August 1999: The
38th International Congress on Alcohol, Drugs and other Dependencies was
held in Vienna on 16-20 August, 1999, continuing a series which began in
1885. As always with such congresses, there was much that was
interesting, along with a good deal that was less so. The plenaries,
in particular, seemed disorganized in their planning, and reflected the
fact that at its centre of gravity the sponsoring organization, the
International Council on Alcohol and Addictions, is now more about illicit
drugs than about alcohol.
The Congress was the last to be presided over by
the redoubtable ICAA Executive Director, Eva Tongue, who retires at the
end of February, 2000. The designated successor is Dr. Jörg
Spieldenner, a 35-year-old sports physician from Germany who has worked in
the drug field and has had some international experience in Australia and
South Africa. At ICAA's General Assembly, Dr. Spieldenner made
a gracious tribute to the "50-year era of the Tongues",
referring to the period when Eva and, previously, her husband Archer, has
been Executive Director.
Marcus Grant, the Director of the alcohol
industry-sponsored International Center on Alcohol Policy in Washington,
was initially nominated to the Board of Directors of ICAA, but his
nomination was withdrawn at the last minute for technical reasons. This
continued the debate over the appropriate role of alcohol
industry-sponsored organizations in ICAA, an issue which resulted in the
withdrawal of most of the Nordic temperance organizations from ICAA
membership after the 1995 Congress. Predominantly composed of
members from the drug side of the field, the ICAA Board seems up to now to
have been willing to push this issue to the point of alienating many
founding organizational members.
Most of my time was spent at the sessions of the
sections on Alcohol Policy, chaired by Gabriel Romanus, and on Alcohol
Epidemiology, chaired by Salme Ahlström and Kaye Fillmore (though I did
look in also on some interesting papers and discussion in the Alcohol,
Drugs and Traffic Safety section). There was usually ample time for
discussion after paper presentations, since the program was not crowded
and several listed presenters did not show up. Time does not allow
me to do more than summarize one interesting paper, among several from
eastern Europe. Alexander
Nemtsov gave a paper in the Epidemiology sessions on "Alcohol
Mortality in Russia ", bringing the statistical story on general
mortality there up to 1997. As he and others have already shown,
there was a steep fall in general mortality in 1985-1988, during the
alcohol restrictions of the Gorbachev era, and an even steeper rise in the
succeeding years. >From the regression lines, Nemtsov estimates
that 1.22 million lives were saved during the 6 years starting with
the1985 restrictions. The number of lives lost in the succeeding period
was greater, but as he notes there were other harmful factors besides
alcohol in this period. Nemtsov's data for Russia shows a downturn
again in total mortality for males and females after 1994 (i.e., in 1995,
1996 and 1997). Concerning this, he argues that alcohol consumption also
began declining in 1995 -- as evidenced by graphs showing that fatal
alcohol poisonings and alcohol psychoses deaths in Russia peaked in 1994,
and have declined in each year 1995-1997. He suggests some possible
reasons behind the apparent fall in alcohol consumption. The state
had begun to be more active about collecting taxes, and also made greater
efforts to control illegal imports and production. "Some
regulation of the alcohol market on the basis of the new acts also
began. Probably, such state activity underlies a relative rise of
prices on alcohol production in comparison, for example, with the prices
for food products." Also a possibility, he noted, was
"that the important factor [behind the] decrease of alcohol
consumption at that period is the poverty of the population, and [a]
decrease of its purchasing power. [Lastly,] it is possible that
during market reforms [i.e., between 1989 and 1994] the significant part
of the [vulnerable heavy] consumers have died."
-- Robin Room
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