Skip Navigation


American Journal of Epidemiology Advance Access originally published online on August 12, 2008
American Journal of Epidemiology 2008 168(8):872-875; doi:10.1093/aje/kwn192
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
168/8/872    most recent
kwn192v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Klatsky, A. L.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Klatsky, A. L.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

American Journal of Epidemiology © The Author 2008. Published by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

Invited Commentary

Invited Commentary: Never, or Hardly Ever? It Could Make a Difference

Arthur L. Klatsky

Correspondence to Dr. Arthur L. Klatsky, Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, 280 West MacArthur Boulevard, Oakland, CA 94611 (e-mail: hartmavn{at}pacbell.net, arthur.klatsky{at}kp.org).

Received for publication April 6, 2008. Accepted for publication April 23, 2008.

A paper showing that about one half of persons stating lifelong alcohol abstinence had previously reported drinking (Am J Epidemiol 2008;168(8):866—871) reopens debate about the validity of this frequently used referent group in alcohol-health studies. Misclassification of lifelong abstainers could result in underestimation of harmful effects of heavy drinking and overestimation of benefits of lighter drinking. Imprecise and unreliable ascertainment of alcohol intake is the rule in the area of alcohol epidemiology research. However, inaccurate ascertainment of past infrequent drinking may have less effect upon outcome estimates than the consequences of other measurement errors such as underreporting of intake. Communication about alcohol-health relations would be improved if all research reports explicitly described queries and methods by which alcohol intake was categorized and if limitations were always frankly acknowledged.

alcohol drinking; control groups; data collection; longitudinal studies; reproducibility of results


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Inj. Prev.Home page
B Kool, S Ameratunga, and R Jackson
The role of alcohol in unintentional falls among young and middle-aged adults: a systematic review of epidemiological studies
Inj. Prev., October 1, 2009; 15(5): 341 - 347.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Am J EpidemiolHome page
J. Rehm, H. Irving, Y. Ye, W. C. Kerr, J. Bond, and T. K. Greenfield
Rehm et al. Respond to "Never, or Hardly Ever?"
Am. J. Epidemiol., October 15, 2008; 168(8): 876 - 877.
[Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.