Scholar's survey to assess alcohol use by older residents

Crystal Dea Moore, director of Skidmore's Social Work Program, is launching a study of alcohol use among older residents, which will begin with data collected through a survey to be distributed next week. The survey will be mailed to a random sample of 1,000 voters older than 65 in the Saratoga Springs ZIP code over the next few days and Moore hopes that many residents who receive the mailing will take a few minutes to assist with the project.

The brief survey contains a number of quality-of-life questions regarding such topics as self-perceived health status, life satisfaction, and depression. Participation is voluntary and anonymous - respondents will not be asked for any information that will identify them. Anyone answering and returning the survey is asked NOT to affix a personal address label, as that will render the survey useless to the researcher.

Moore will use the data collected when she travels to Sweden in late February as Skidmore College's first STINT fellow to travel to Sweden. Her fellowship is provided by the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education.

For three months Moore will be based in the Department of Social Medicine at Gothenburg University, where she will work on projects that involve the promotion of health and well being of older adults. Data collected from the survey will be compared with similar data collected on older Swedes. Additional support for Moore's research is provided by Skidmore's Responsible Citizenship Task Force.

Said Moore, "We see this - helping people to think about their own alcohol use - as a public service." Older adults, she explained, metabolize alcohol differently and may be taking prescription drugs that could affect their ability to metabolize alcohol. As a result, they may have adverse outcomes following alcohol consumption such as falls or changes in mood.

Moore became interested in doing her own research after examining the results of a survey done in the early 2000s by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Titled "National Survey of Drug Use and Health," the epidemiological study reported "at-risk" alcohol use by 13 percent of the men and eight percent of the women responding. "At-risk" drinking was defined as an average of two or more daily drinks. In the same study, 14 percent of men and three percent of women reported "binge" drinking, defined as five or more drinks at the same occasion in one day.

The survey will be mailed during the week of Nov. 15. In it, Moore asks questions about mobility, general activities, pain/discomfort, anxiety/depression, and alcohol consumption. The survey contains about 24 questions and is expected to take about 6-7 minutes to complete. Participation is anonymous and voluntary.

Moore says she hopes her research will "start a discussion" among families. "The process of conducting research can also produce results, " she said, adding, "It can help to raise awareness and promote communication among families and older people about this topic." She hopes the survey will foster consideration of how drinking behavior can change later in life and promote consideration of a "harm-reduction" model to alcohol use. Said Moore, "Some researchers have shown that alcohol dependency in later years has started with drinking during middle age. This is a topic that older drinkers and families might want to consider."