Towards agreement on ways to measure and report drinking patterns and alcohol-related problems in adult general population surveys: the Skarpo Conference overview

A thematic conference of the Kettil Bruun Society (KBS) for Social and Epid emiological Research on Alcohol was held in Skarpo, near Stockholm, on Apri l 3-7, 2000. The goals of the meeting were to develop consensus sets of que stionnaire items for measuring alcohol consumption and social harm, to deli neate statistical and practical concerns related to the aggregation of cons umption and harm data and to identify summary measures to be used for descr iptive purposes and in analyses of the association between alcohol intake a nd alcohol-related outcomes. The results of the conference discussions are summarized below, with emphasis on both areas where the conference yielded recommendations for measures and methods of aggregation for analysis, and o n areas where consensus could not be obtained and/or where additional resea rch is needed. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.