Forty years ago, Federal legislation placed new emphasis on solving America’s alcohol problems and created the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). Since then, NIAAA has led an increasingly effective effort to both define alcohol issues as medical in nature and to address them using evidence-based findings.
This Alcohol Alert reflects on 40 years of NIAAA’s research and outreach accomplishments and provides insight into the future direction of this important work.