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Key Takeaways

• Alcohol control policies that increase alcohol taxes or establish minimum unit pricing have been demonstrated to reduce alcohol consumption at the population level.
• Increased financial alcohol control policies also reduce alcohol consumption and harm among low-socioeconomic status (SES) subgroups; however, the evidence is inconclusive for racial/ethnic groups.
• This literature review...

Key Takeaways

• Studies on substance use and mental health issues related to structural stigma, racism, and sexism recently have increased sharply in number.
• The structural determinant measures used in the studies were diverse and often innovative.
• Most of the studies used passive-observational (correlational) designs, which limited the ability to assess whether the structural determinants...

Introduction

Sexual minority (e.g., lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, asexual) and gender minority (e.g., transgender, nonbinary, other gender-diverse) people are at heightened risk for alcohol use, hazardous drinking,^[*] and alcohol use disorder (AUD) compared to their heterosexual and cisgender counterparts.^2-6 (For definitions of various sexual and gender minority [SGM] populations, see, for...

Introduction

Abundant cross-sectional data indicate that alcohol use and related problems are accompanied by disruptions to sleep and circadian rhythms.¹ Alcohol's negative impacts on sleep are well established, especially in adults, and a smaller body of literature also reports alcohol's disruption of circadian rhythms.^2-4 Growing evidence supports sleep and circadian factors as influencing...

Introduction

Although historically cisgender women (i.e., women whose sex assigned at birth is consonant with their gender) in the United States have had lower levels of alcohol consumption than cisgender men, recent analyses of historical and cohort data suggest that overall gender differences are narrowing.¹ This narrowing is largely due to substantial increases in cisgender women's alcohol use...

Introduction

Pain is a complex, near-universal phenomenon, which can be conceptualized as a motivational state that engenders goal-directed action.¹ Motivational models of substance use highlight the role of expected effects and suggest that individuals become motivated to use substances when such use is perceived as holding greater value than other available objects or events.^2,3 A rapidly growing...

Introduction

It is almost axiomatic that alcohol use disorder (AUD) and the family are inextricably bound. AUD harms individual family members and the functioning of the family as a whole, and family members’ actions may exacerbate problematic drinking. Conversely, families play a key role in recovery from AUD, and recovery has a positive impact on family members and family functioning. Scientific...

Introduction

Racial/ethnic minority groups comprise a large proportion of the U.S. population and evidence a substantial need for treatment of substance use disorder (SUD). Analysis of the most recent, reliable data available—the 2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH)¹—found that the prevalence of past-year SUD among those age 12 and older was higher among some racial/ethnic minority...

Although rates of alcohol and other substance use disorders in adolescents have been estimated for decades, little is known about the prevalence, pathways, and predictors of remission and long-term recovery among adolescents. This article provides an integrative review of the literature on youth recovery. A final selection of 39 relevant articles was grouped into five sections: treatment outcomes...

Special emphasis populations in the current context can be defined as groups experiencing health disparities resulting in elevated risk to health, safety, and well-being from drinking alcohol. Individuals from marginalized minority populations often encounter barriers to accessing and receiving effective alcohol treatment due to social inequities and disadvantaged life contexts, which also may...