Alcohol Research Team

Illicit Drugs Research Team	Alcohol Research Team
Tobacco Research Team	Community ATOD Research Team
Youth Obesity Research Team

Alcohol Research Team
University of Illinois at Chicago
Institute for Health Research and Policy
1747 West Roosevelt Road
Room 558, M/C 275
Chicago, Illinois 60608
Telephone: 312.413.0475
Facsimile: 312.355.2801
Email: impcteen@uic.edu
Web: http://www.impacteen.org

The ImpacTeen Alcohol Research Team is identifying and tracking all legislation regarding alcohol control at the state level for all 50 United States. Selected policies will be evaluated using controlled time-series research designs for their effectiveness in reducing alcohol-related mortality such as traffic crashes, homicide, suicide, recreational injuries, and other health problems.

Directing this component of the project are Frank Chaloupka, PhD (UIC). Other core members of the ImpacTeen Alcohol Research Team include Lan Liang, PhD (AHRQ), and Sandy Slater, PhD (UIC).

FRANK J. CHALOUPKA, PhD (UIC)
Telephone: 312.413.2287
Email: fjc@uic.edu
Web: http://www.uic.edu/~fjc

Dr. Chaloupka is a professor of economics in the department of economics at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Business Administration. He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research Health Economics Program. He received his doctorate in economics from the City University of New York Graduate School in 1988. Dr. Chaloupka's research focuses on the economic analysis of substance use and abuse, primarily among youth and young adults. He has conducted extensive research on the effects of prices and substance control policies on the demands for tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs, and on related outcomes. Dr. Chaloupka has published over 25 articles in such journals as the Journal of Political Economy, American Economic Review, Journal of Health Economics, Economic Inquiry, Eastern Economic Journal, Southern Economic Journal, and Contemporary Economic Policy; and numerous book chapters and working papers.

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LAN LIANG, PhD (AHRQ)
Telephone: 301.427.1575
Email: lliang@ahrq.gov

Lan Liang, Ph.D., is a Senior Economist in the Center for Financing, Access, and Cost Trends at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). She is also a research economist affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research. Dr. Liang earned her doctoral degree in economics from Duke University in 1999. Prior to joining AHRQ, Dr. Liang was an assistant professor in the economics department at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Much of Dr. Liang's research has been in the area of economics of substance use and abuse. She has analyzed issues such as how prices and other substance control policies affects the demand for tobacco and alcohol, why some drinking and driving laws are more effective than others, and whether comprehensive tobacco control programs have prompted public policy changes at the state level.
Dr. Liang's research has been funded by a number of federal agencies and private foundations, including the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the Centers for Disease Control and Health Promotion, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the American Cancer Society. She has recently finished a study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation looking at the effectiveness of tobacco control policies among adolescents with emotional and behavioral problems. Her research has appeared in both public health and economics journals. Dr. Liang was a Faculty Scholar of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Research Network on the Etiology of Tobacco and an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education faculty research participant at the CDC.

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SANDY SLATER, PhD (UIC)
Telephone: 312.413.0475
Email: sslater@uic.edu
Web: http://www.uic.edu/~sslater

Sandy Slater, PhD, Senior Research Specialist at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), is a health policy analyst whose research focuses on the impact of state and local policies, and other environmental factors on health behavior. Since joining UIC, Dr. Slater has examined state and local policies, socioeconomic, geographic and store type variation in tobacco and alcohol retail marketing strategies and their association to youth smoking and drinking attitudes, beliefs, and behavior. More recently, Dr. Slater is investigating the impact of socioeconomic and other environmental factors on physical activity and obesity. Specifically, she conducts research aimed at understanding factors in the environment that provide opportunities, and those that constrain, the ability for individuals to be physically active. Her research has included examining the relationship between the availability of outdoor physical activity-related settings and commercial physical activity-related outlets on race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, as well as on youth physical activity behavior and overweight. Her National Institutes of Health-funded research examines the importance of school and community physical activity settings and opportunities on youth physical activity levels, overweight and obesity. She also developed a guide that inventories existing obesity-related data sources, identifies what factors are currently being measured, and what is missing from existing sources to determine what measures should be developed for future research.

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