Alcohol: The Way You Define the Problem Influences Your Solution

Daniel W. Hungerford, DrPH, holds a doctorate in nutritional epidemiology from the School of Public Health and the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. He has devoted his career to studying and promoting the implementation of alcohol screening and brief intervention (alcohol SBI) in medical settings. Recently retired for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), he continues that effort part time as a contractor in CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities on the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Prevention Team.Starting in the 1990s he initiated research in emergency departments and trauma centers on alcohol SBI and organized two national conferences on the topic. The proceedings of the first, Alcohol Problems among Emergency Department Patients, was published as a book by CDC and produced research recommendations for the field. The proceedings of the second—Alcohol and Other Drug Problems among Hospitalized Trauma Patients: Controlling Complications, Mortality, and Trauma Recidivism—were published as a special supplement to the Journal of Trauma and influenced the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma to require level 1 trauma centers to screen for risky drinking and provide screen-positive patients with an intervention. Currently, Dr. Hungerford collaborates with other federal agencies and stakeholders to promote alcohol SBI in primary care settings.