Initiatives to curb alcohol abuse and alcoholism in the former Soviet Union

Alcohol Health & Research World, Fall, 1991 by Nancy D. Dorman, Leland H. Towle

In early 1991, after nearly a year of planning, an alcohol exchange scientist program in the biological sciences began. The first Soviet scientist arrived in the United States and was placed in an NIAAA-funded Research Center for 1 year. Four additional Soviet scientists were selected to work in NIAAA-funded centers during 1991. Plans for an American alcohol researcher to work at the Soviet Addiction Center in 1991 had to be modified to a short-term visit when economic conditions in Moscow began to deteriorate.

The major objective of the joint pilot study is to develop uniform data collection methods, including comparable alcohol abuse and dependence diagnostic criteria for use by American and Soviet (now Russian) researchers in alcoholism treatment studies. In January 1991, following the translation of research protocols. Soviet specialists on the project met with NIAAA and pilot project collaborators at the Philadelphia Veterans Administration Medical Center to establish procedures for administration of the project protocol and interview questionnaire. Preliminary interview data collected in Moscow have been sent to NIAAA for coding and analysis. An initial report of results of the joint project is expected in 1992.

Additional activities have included numerous short-term visits between American and Soviet researchers and government officials, including visits to many of the major laboratories and research centers in both countries. In June 1991, two Soviet epidemiologists participated in an NIAAA-sponsored Didactic Workshop on Alcohol Epidemiology. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the All-Union Center of Additions was transferred to the Russian Ministry of Health. It is expected that NIAAA collaboration with the Addictions Center, including the selection of additional Russian exchange scientists to work in the United States in 1992, will continue and may even expand, depending upon the stability of the Russian government.

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