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Population and Life
Course Studies
Dr. Edward
Adlaf, Head  The overall goal of the Population and Life Course
Studies Unit is to describe the extent of addiction and mental health
indicators in the population and to monitor trends. This includes: providing
and disseminating accurate and timely data regarding alcohol use, other
drug use and mental health indicators among general and special populations;
and monitoring and identifying risk and protective factors for alcohol,
other drug use and mental health indicators.
By measuring addiction and mental health indicators,
we provide the knowledge base for health professionals, programplanners
and municipal, provincial and national government bodies. This information
can also help us target prevention and other programs and evaluate existing
programs, policies and health objectives. The result is an information
base that helps ensure needed
programs are established in a timely and cost-effective manner.
Our investigators are a multidisciplinary group
comprising epidemiologists, sociologists, psychologists, criminologists
and historians. Investigators also serve as experts for international
agencies such as the World Health Organization and the United Nations
Drug Control Programme. Unit staff hold appointments with University
of Toronto departments, including Public Health Sciences, Psychology,
Psychiatry, Sociology and History.
Our accomplishments during the 2001/2002 period
include the following.
Student Surveys
The 13th cycle of the Ontario Student Drug Use
Survey (OSDUS), the longest ongoing school survey in Canada, was completed
and released to the public. The Ontario Student Drug Use Survey Drug
Report was released in November 2001, and the first Ontario Student
Drug Use Survey Mental Health Report was released in spring 2001.
The 2001 OSDUS Drug Report found that, over the
past decade, the smoking rate among youth has decreased. Increases in
drug use stalled toward the end of this period, with the exception of
ecstasy use. Still, a significant percentage of young Ontarians are
engaging in risky behaviours such as binge drinking, driving after using
cannabis, and being a passenger in a vehicle driven by someone who had
been drinking.
The 2001 OSDUS Mental Health Report found that
the majority of young Ontarians do not report an emotional problem,
nor do they report delinquent activity. In fact, violence has decreased
over the past decade.
However, the survey revealed that a significant
number of youth do experience problems. For instance, just under one-third
report psychological distress, one-quarter are bullied at school, and
one in ten report serious thoughts about suicide and seeing a mental
health professional in the past year.
Internet Resources
We completed and released our first electronic
monitoring report: CAMH Monitor eReport: Addiction and Mental Health
Indicators among Ontario Adults, 1977-2000.
The report, based on telephone surveys of adults
aged 18 and older throughout the province of Ontario, describes the
extent of alcohol use, drug use, mental health indicators and gambling
problems, and provides a knowledge base for health professionals. The
report is available at http://www.camh.net/research/pdfs/cm
2000-epirpt.pdf.
We expanded our unit Web page, http://www.camh.net/research/population_life_course.html,
to more efficiently disseminate epidemiological and other research
findings.
Visitors to the Web page will find our ongoing bimonthly eBulletin,
which provides highlights of our survey research.
Self-Help Treatment of Alcohol Problems
We successfully completed an innovative niaaa-funded
study (Cunningham), which investigated the treatment of alcohol problems
with self-help materials among a non-clinical sample.
The study found that those who received both
self-help material and personalized feedback regarding their drinking
reported significantly improved drinking outcomes after six months as
compared to those who received the self-help book only, the personalized
feedback only or received no intervention.
Youth, Drugs and Violence
A NIDA-funded cross national study of Youth,
Drugs and Violence (Erickson), which partners with a research team at
the University of Delaware, was further expanded by adding two collaborating
teams from the University of Amsterdam and the University of Montreal.
This study will compare the association between
violence and drug use across the four sites and among three samples
of youth: students, non-students and those in detention.
Gin Use in 18th Century London
Jessica Warner completed a major scholarly publication,
Craze: Gin and Debauchery in an Age of Reason (2002, New York: Four
Walls Eight Windows).
Based on archival research funded by the American
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, this book looks
at gin use in 18th Century London. The ensuing "gin craze,"
Warner argues, was the first modern drug scare, with parallels to more
recent drug scares, including, most notably, the so-called "crack
cocaine epidemic" of the late 1980s.
Gender, Alcohol and Aggression
We are collaborating with the Department of Sociology,
the Centre of Criminology (University of Toronto), Department of Anthropology
and Sociology (Concordia University), the Swiss Institute for the Prevention
of Alcohol and Drug Problems (Lausanne) and the Addiction Research Institute
(Zurich), to investigate the links between gender, alcohol and aggression.
In particular, the study seeks to identify the circumstances in which
women are most like men in how they express aggression.
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