Recorded presentation

Howard Shaffer, PhD, Harvard Medical School, Divison on Addictions, Harvard University, Landmark Center, 401 Park Drive, 2nd Floor East, Boston, MA 02215, (617)384-9030, howard.shaffer@hms.harvard.edu

As the popularity of legalized gambling continues to grow, society is directing more attention toward the public health risks and the economic, legal and social costs of expanded gambling. Recently, there has been rapidly growing interest in viewing gambling from a public health perspective (Korn, 2000; Korn & Shaffer, 1999; Shaffer, Hall, & Vander Bilt, 1999; Shaffer & Kidman, in press; Shaffer & Korn, 2002; Shaffer, LaBrie, & LaPlante, in press). A public health view encourages the examination of population-based evidence rather than individual attributes. An idiographic approach to gambling has characterized the majority of models offered to explain gambling behavior. A public health approach to gambling encourages a more comprehensive strategy. From this perspective, scientists need to examine the societal risk and protective factors that promote or limit the transition from recreational to problem-related gambling as well as individual attributes that interact with these factors. Because a public health perspective brings multiple prisms to the understanding of health related concerns, adopting this perspective has many implications: some of these implications create thorny problems for various gambling stakeholders. In this presentation, I will consider how epidemiological evidence from the United States challenges observers on every side of the gambling issue to carefully consider their claims and positions. In addition, the epidemiology of gambling necessitates that scientists advance existing theoretical models and methodological tools to better understand the impact of gambling on the public health.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the levels of gambling that are used to classify epidemiological research (i.e., prevalence rates).
• Articulate two public health models of gambling addiction (i.e., exposure and adaptation).
• Discuss the conflicting evidence that epidemiological evidence provides regarding each of the two theoretical models described above.

Keywords: Mental Health, Epidemiology

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.

Recorded presentation