David Rosenbloom has been appointed Director of the new NIAAA-funded Center to Prevent Alcohol-Related Problems Among Young People. The Center was created through a $10 million grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) awarded earlier this year to the Boston University School of Public Health. Rosenbloom will continue to serve as the Director of Join Together. Join Together's information dissemination efforts, technical assistance work and community-based programming will complement the education work of the NIAAA center.

The grant is the first research center grant ever awarded to a school of public health in the NIAAA's 27-year history. The grant will enable the School of Public Health to significantly expand and enhance its alcohol-related research by fostering collaborative projects and activities among researchers at the School, the Boston University School of Medicine, and Boston Medical Center.

The center includes 3 primary and 3 pilot research projects and will also host seminars and workshops for the public. One project will explore why persons who begin drinking at younger ages are more likely to experience a variety of alcohol-related health problems as adults. A second study will investigate the after-effects of binge drinking on college students' academic performance. A third effort will evaluate the effectiveness of brief alcohol counseling for young patients presenting at hospital emergency departments. Another project will build on Join Together's web-based alcohol screening program (www.AlcoholScreening.org) by testing alternative screening approaches among college students.

The center will also facilitate the development of campus/community partnerships in Massachusetts to identify and implement programs to reduce college alcohol-related problems.