Dr. Martyn Van Hasselt

Posted on November 12, 2019

Dr. Martyn Van Hasselt (Economics) received new funding from the Research Triangle Institute (RTI International) for the project “Improving Models of Alcohol Consumption Mismeasurement and Burden of Disease.”

Several health conditions have been associated with alcohol use, including many cancers. Many of these conditions may be affected by even moderate levels of alcohol consumption, and growing evidence suggests that there may be a high burden of illness associated with alcohol consumption. Collectively, these observations suggest that a robust public health response is warranted.

Epidemiological modeling can provide a framework for quantifying the extent to which SBI can reduce the burden of illness associated with alcohol consumption. Specifically, potential impact fractions (PIFs) can be used to estimate the proportion of disease cases that could be eliminated under an effective, national SBI program. However, existing methods for estimating potential impact fractions are likely biased due to misclassification errors in self-reported alcohol consumption data.

This study takes a novel Bayesian approach to mitigating problems associated with misreporting. Specifically, researchers first develop a Bayesian misclassification model for obtaining alcohol exposure distributions and show how much bias from misclassification can be reduced under this approach. Second, they apply the Bayesian misclassification model to estimate more accurately potential impact fractions associated with an effective, national SBI program targeted towards reducing alcohol exposure.

News

Share This