This year's National Alcohol Screening Day on April 8 offers free, anonymous screenings to the public through community-based programs operated by local health professionals. The nonprofit organization Screening for Mental Health Inc. is providing screening materials.
The federally supported effort is a good start, says the AAFP. But without appropriate follow-up, screening for alcohol or any other health problem has limited benefit.
The Academy took this view to U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona, M.D., Feb. 12 in Washington. AAFP President Michael Fleming, M.D., of Shreveport, La., and AAFP staff met with Carmona, officials from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and other government and health organization representatives to discuss the screening initiative, now in its seventh year.
"We talked about this issue from an everyday, practicing doc perspective," Fleming said. "How much good does a single day of screening do? From the perspective of a practicing family doc, screening is just the beginning of the management process. We have to do the intervention and follow-up, as well.
"What we suggested to the group instead was a National Alcohol Screening Awareness Day that would allow us to focus on intervention and treatment. I think they really liked that."
An excerpt from the AAFP policy on substance and alcohol abuse and addiction, available at http://www.aafp.org/x7096.xml, summarizes the Academy's stance on the issue: "AAFP strongly urges its members to be involved in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of alcoholism and diseases relating to the use of alcohol. Detoxification is only the beginning of treatment and must be followed by adequate rehabilitation under expert guidance."
A small study in the March Journal of Pediatrics offers a reminder of why detection and successful intervention are so critical.
Researchers with the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development used nerve testing to determine that 1-month-old infants born to mothers who drank heavily (four or more drinks per day) during pregnancy suffered peripheral nerve damage. Repeat testing at about 1 year found no improvement in nerve function, suggesting the damage might be permanent.
"Infants born to mothers who drink heavily during pregnancy are known to be at risk for mental retardation and birth defects," said NICHD Director Duane Alexander, M.D., of the study findings. "This is the first study to show that these infants may suffer peripheral nerve damage as well."
How widespread are drinking problems? About 14 million people in the United States abuse or are physically dependent on alcohol, says the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. That's one out of every 13 adults. Millions more are at-risk drinkers.
Go to http://www.nichd.nih.gov/new/releases/mothers_alcohol.cfm for a press release on the NICHD study. To learn more about National Alcohol Screening Day, funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and HHS' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, go to http://www.nationalalcoholscreeningday.org/alcohol.asp.
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Copyright © 2004 by
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