721 - Preventing Alcohol Misuse, Use Disorders, and Deaths
Public Health On Call
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
4.6 • 644 Ratings
🗓️ 16 February 2024
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Alcohol use is the fourth leading cause of death in the US, but there are evidence-based approaches to preventing alcohol misuse and deaths and treating use disorders. Dr. Cara Poland, an addiction medicine specialist at Michigan State University, talks with Stephanie Desmon about excise taxes, evidence of the harms of alcohol, and her personal connection to the topic. They also discuss the differences between misuse and disorders and challenging false notions around alcohol's health protective effects.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, |
| 0:05.9 | where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges. |
| 0:16.3 | If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jhhhu.edu. |
| 0:23.8 | That's public health question at jhhu.edu for future podcast episodes. |
| 0:32.2 | This is Lindsay Smith-Rogers. |
| 0:34.6 | Today, the topic is the public health problem that is alcohol use. Stephanie |
| 0:39.0 | Desmond talks to Dr. Kara Poland, an addiction specialist at Michigan State University, |
| 0:44.4 | about the need to reduce alcohol use, a leading cause of preventable death. One idea Poland |
| 0:50.6 | is advocating, increasing excise taxes on alcohol, which has been proven to reduce |
| 0:56.7 | consumption. Let's listen. Carol Poland, thanks so much for joining me. Thank you for having me. |
| 1:03.3 | So today we're going to talk about alcohol excise taxes and how you believe they could really |
| 1:09.5 | prevent a lot of alcohol-related deaths. So first, I guess, I would like to talk to you about how you believe they could really prevent a lot of alcohol-related deaths. |
| 1:12.3 | So first, I guess, I would like to talk to you about how you got to this topic. |
| 1:15.6 | And I think you have a personal experience. |
| 1:18.0 | Yes. |
| 1:18.4 | So when I was in my training and my fellowship, about halfway through it, my brother died |
| 1:23.6 | of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, related to his depression that was a result of his |
| 1:28.8 | alcohol use disorder. He had started drinking when he was about 14 years old and died when he was |
| 1:34.6 | 24. So what came out of that? So what came out of that was just this passion for understanding |
| 1:43.2 | both personally and academically what happened. My brother had |
| 1:47.9 | been in rehab. He had all these opportunities to get into treatment. His sister was a burgeoning |
| 1:55.1 | addiction doctor. So we had talked about medications. He had never been placed on medications. |
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