PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

T Tam

Publications and source records attributed to T Tam.

24 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1998

Alcohol consumption among racial/ethnic minorities: theory and research.

Ethnic minorities (e.g., Hispanics, blacks, Asian-Americans, and Native Americans) are still underrepresented in alcohol research in the United States. Furthermore, existing studies often do not take into consideration the variability that exists within each ethnic group, resulting in inaccurate generalizations. Studies among Hispanics have found substantial differences among Hispanic subgroups in drinking patterns and rates of alcohol-related problems. Moreover, no single variable can explain the observed patterns. Similarly, numerous factors have been shown to shape drinking patterns among blacks, including individual and environmental characteristics as well as historical and cultural factors. Different subgroups of Asian-Americans also vary substantially in their rates of drinking and heavy drinking, although their lifetime alcohol use is lower than the national average. Genetic and cultural factors, as well as stress and historic experiences, may influence drinking patterns of Asian-Americans. The widely differing drinking patterns among Native Americans also are likely shaped by a variety of influences.

Alcohol Drinking↗
PubMed1997

DSM-IV alcohol dependence and drinking in the U.S. population: a risk analysis.

PURPOSE: This paper examines the relationship between alcohol dependence according to the criteria found in the 4th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV) of the American Psychiatric Association and drinking in the U.S. general population. METHODS: The data set under analysis is the 1988 National Health Interview Survey, which interviewed a probability sample of 22,102 adult drinkers in the U.S. household population. The response rate was 86%. RESULTS: Results indicate that there is a linear relationship between DSM-IV dependence and the mean number of drinks consumed per day, or the number of days drinking five or more glasses of alcohol in the past 12 months. Respondents who reported consuming five or more drinks in a day have about six times more chances of being dependent than respondents who did not report such pattern of drinking. Older drinkers are less at risk than younger drinkers. CONCLUSIONS: There is a risk of alcohol dependence at relatively low volumes of consumption. The risk increases gradually with the volume of consumption. An added and higher risk exists when drinkers engage in a pattern of consumption involving the ingestion of five or more drinks per day.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Cloning and characterization of an ATBF1 isoform that expresses in a neuronal differentiation-dependent manner.

The human ATBF1 cDNA reported previously, now termed ATBF1-B, encodes a 306-kDa protein containing 4 homeodomains and 18 zinc fingers including one pseudo zinc finger motif. Here, we report the isolation of a second ATBF1 cDNA, 12 kilobase pairs long, termed ATBF1-A. The deduced ATBF1-A protein is 404 kDa in size and differs from ATBF1-B by a 920-amino acid extention at the N terminus. Analysis of 5'-genomic sequences showed that the 5'-noncoding sequences specific to ATBF1-A and ATBF1-B transcripts were contained in distinct exons that could splice to a downstream exon common to the ATBF1-A and ATBF1-B mRNAs. The expression of ATBF1-A transcripts increased to high levels when P19 and NT2/D1 cells were treated with retinoic acid to induce neuronal differentiation. Preferential expression of ATBF1-A transcripts was also observed in developing mouse brain. Transient transfection assays showed that the 5.5-kilobase pair sequence upstream of the ATBF1-A-specific exon (exon 2) supported expression of the linked chloramphenicol acetyltransferase gene in neuronal cells derived from P19 cells but not in undifferentiated P19 or in F9 cells, which do not differentiate into neurons. These results showed that ATBF1-A and ATBF1-B transcripts are generated by alternative promoter usage combined with alternative splicing and that the ATBF1-A-specific promoter is activated during neuronal differentiation.

Alternative Splicing↗
PubMed1995

Alcohol and non-fatal injury in the U.S. general population: a risk function analysis.

This paper reports a risk function analysis of average daily volume of alcohol consumed and the frequency of consuming 5 or more drinks during a single day with reporting an injury in a probability sample of the U.S. adult household population living in the 48 contiguous states. The data are from the 1990 National Alcohol Survey on a weighted sample of 1150 respondents, 748 of whom were current drinkers. Risk of injury was found to increase with an average daily volume of 1 drink for both males and females and for those 30 and younger and those over 30, and to increase with a frequency of consuming 5 or more drinks on one day more often than twice a year. These data suggest that risk for injury may be increased at relatively low levels of consumption and, if so, that preventive efforts aimed at more moderate drinkers may have a greater impact on the reduction of alcohol-related accidents than efforts focused on heavier drinkers who are fewer in number.

Accidents, Traffic↗
PubMed1995

Assessing bias in community-based prevalence estimates: towards an unduplicated count of problem drinkers and drug users.

General population survey estimates of the overall prevalence of problem drinking and drug use in a community are biased by the exclusion of non-household populations. Estimates based on compiling prevalences in community institutions may also be biased due to over-counting of users of more than one institution. This paper examines prevalence estimates derived from probability samples of problem drinkers in the general population and within alcohol treatment, drug treatment, mental health, criminal justice and welfare agencies in a single US county. Data sets are merged and weighted to reflect a community sample of institutions, and a 17% subset of cases is identified within the institutional samples that are not living in housing units typically included in general population sampling frames. The difference in prevalences of problem drinking in the household and non-household populations is found to be large: 11% and 48%, respectively. Even greater differences are found between estimates of unprescribed weekly drug use (6% and 47%, respectively) and combined problem drinking and weekly drug use (2% and 27%, respectively). This suggests that confining samples to the household population can systematically under-represent the prevalence of problem drinking and drug use. A second source of bias in prevalence is characteristic of studies using records from multiple institutions. When duplication of service use in the five agency samples is considered, it becomes apparent that prevalence may be biased upward due to over-counting of multiple service users.

Adolescent↗