Gambling And Compulsive Alcohol Use Among College Students: Further Evidence Of Links

TheTask Force on College Gambling Policiesissued a report in 2009 recommending that student health professionals screen for gambling problems among students engaged in risky behaviors. Since the release of this report, new research has been published that provides evidence that a single question can open up information about risky behaviors.

For example, alcohol use by college students – and binge drinking in particular – has been associated with a range of risky behaviors, including gambling. A new study published in theAmerican Journal on Addictionsprovides further evidence of this link by focusing on thequalityof drinking behavior rather than on thequantityof alcohol consumed , which is the typical measure used by researchers to identify students at risk for alcohol-related problems (Pedrelli et al., 2010). Specifically, this study examined compulsive drinking, described as “persistent thoughts about alcohol, inability to control alcohol consumption, and a compulsive drive to consume alcohol” (Pedrelli et al., 2010, p. 15). The authors of the study hypothesized that this behavior would be associated with an increased likelihood of substance use, unsafe sex and gambling.

The 904 study participants were undergraduates at three universities in various regions who were predominantly female (54.8 percent), Caucasian (57.1 percent) and living on campus (39.5 percent). They were asked questions from the Consumptive Habits Questionnaire (Guidi et al., 2009). One question asked respondents to report on whether they engaged in a number of risky behaviors, including compulsive use of street drugs, prescription drugs, alcohol and caffeine and activities such as compulsive gambling.

Both females and males who reported compulsive alcohol use were at a greater risk for risky behaviors. However, while males in this group were more likely to gamble, there was no statistically significant association in females between compulsive drinking and gambling.

The authors offered several possible reasons for the link between compulsive drinking and risky behaviors: the pharmacological effect of alcohol and drugs in lifting inhibitions; the possibility that problematic behaviors share a biological foundation; shared personality traits such as sensation-seeking and impulsivity; and that students who report compulsive drinking might be more at ease reporting on other risky behaviors.

The practical implications of these findings suggest that researchers can identify the risky behaviors with a single question, which bodes well for enabling college student health professionals to identify potentially problematic behaviors. The authors explained, “In light of the limited resources available on college campuses overall, and in particular in settings where screening can be conducted such as at health centers, asking about compulsive drinking may represent a helpful strategy to identify high-risk college students” (Pedrelli et al., 2010, p.19).

References

Guidi, J., Pender, M., Hollon, S.D., et al. (2009). The prevalence of compulsive eating and exercise among college students: An exploratory study.Psychiatry Research, 165, 154-162.

Pedrelli, P., Bitran, S., Shyu, I., Baer, L., Guidi, J., Tucker, D. D., et al. (2010). Compulsive alcohol use and other high-risk behaviors among college students.American Journal on Addictions, 20(1), 14-20.

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Exploration Grant And Postdoctoral Fellowship Applications Due April 1, 2011

The National Center for Responsible Gaming (NCRG) offers grants in five categories to support research on gambling disorders. The next application deadline is April 1, 2011, for Exploration Grant and Postdoctoral Fellowship proposals.

The Exploration Grant category offers quick access to funding and provides up to $10,000 for a period of 12 months and is intended to support pilot studies or other small projects. Applicants will be notified about grant decisions by May 2, 2011. Download the application instructions and application form (in PDF form) from theExplorations Grants pageon the Institute website.

The new Postdoctoral Fellowship is intended for individuals who are within five years of completing their terminal research degree or within five years of completing medical residency (or the equivalent). Applicants may request up to $43,000 for one year. The Postdoctoral Fellowship is not available to recipients of an NIH Career Development Award or an NCRG grant. Download the application instructions and application form (in PDF form) from thePostdoctoral Fellowshippage on the Institute website.

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Study Finds Surprising Relationship Between Prescription Drug Misuse And Problem Gambling

Addiction researchers have found associations between numerous addictive behaviors, with individuals often being involved with many addictive substances and behaviors at the same time. Though this relationship is common, it is not well understood. The intermingling relationships of less thoroughly studied addictive behaviors, such as gambling and prescription drug misuse (PDM), are particularly unclear. A recent study led by Cheryl Currie, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Alberta, Canada, was published in theCanadian Journal of Psychiatryand explores the relationship between prescription drug misuse, demographics and addictive behaviors including gambling (Currie, Schopflocher, & Wild, 2011). Currie won the Outstanding Poster Award at the 2010 NCRG Conference on Gambling and Addiction, and discussed early findings from this study with us in anaudio interviewconducted at the conference.

The researchers surveyed a representative sample of 3,511 adults living in Alberta, Canada, about their PDM, illicit drug and alcohol use and abuse, tobacco use, gambling behavior and demographics. They found that 8.2 percent of Albertans had misused a prescription drug in the previous 12 months, and the strongest demographic predictors for PDM were disabled status, younger age, and high school graduates with no college experience. These correlations are not unexpected, as younger people use more illicit drugs generally, and disabled persons use more prescription drugs than adults generally (e.g. to control pain). What was not expected was the strong relationship between PDM and problem gambling.

After disabled status, problem gambling was the second strongest predictor for PDM, with problem gamblers misusing prescription drugs three times more often than others. This finding is unexpected because PDM is a form of substance abuse, and it would be logical to assume that people who misuse prescription drugs might also abuse other substances like alcohol or cannabis. In fact, alcohol and cannabis dependenceismore common in people with past-12-month PDM, but gambling is the most common addictive predictor of PDM in this study.

Since the relationship between gambling and PDM has not yet been comprehensively examined, there is no way of knowing how or why the two behaviors interact. The authors suggest that problem gamblers may be misusing prescription drugs to “cope with gambling losses, deal with gambling urges, to stay awake while gambling, or they may engage in both PDM and gambling to escape other life stressors,” (Currie et al., 2011, p. 32). Certainly this surprising finding deserves more research attention as the complex relationships between addictive disorders are further explored.

More information on the article is available onthe journal’s website, and the full interview with Cheryl Currie can be heard on theGambling Disorders 360 post from November 15th. Are you surprised by these findings? Let us know in the Comments section below.

References

Currie, C. L., Schopflocher, D. P., & Wild, T. C. (2011). Prevalence and correlates of 12-month prescription drug misuse in alberta.Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. Revue Canadienne De Psychiatrie,56(1), 27-34.

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Sensation-seeking And Gambling Disorders: NCRG-Funded Study Explores The Relationship

Treatment and prevention are two of the most important and challenging areas for addiction researchers. Prevention is a particularly difficult undertaking even when working with the most understood disorders, and can be even more difficult in an emerging field such as gambling disorders. One way to advance prevention research is to better understand the relationship between pathological gambling (PG) and psychological traits that have been more thoroughly studied. One recent study by Erica Fortune and Adam Goodie, Ph.D., at the University of Georgia, takes this approach. The study, which was published in the December 2010 edition of theJournal of Gambling Studies(Fortune & Goodie, 2009), was partially funded by a grant from the NCRG to Dr. Goodie and attempts to clarify the relationship between PG and sensation seeking.

Sensation seeking is a psychological trait that measures a person’s need for excitement and pleasure as well as their susceptibility to boredom. It may seem intuitive that individuals with PG would rate highly in sensation seeking since gambling can be an exciting activity, providing a “rush” to healthy and disordered people alike. However, such a positive correlation has not been shown consistently in the scientific literature. In fact, some studies have shown that people with PG are higher in sensation seeking (a positive correlation); some have shown that people with PG are actually lower in sensation seeking (a negative correlation); and some have shown no relation at all (no correlation).

The authors hypothesized that the uneven outcomes of previous studies are attributable to the differences in the populations studied. All of the studies that found a negative correlation sampled individuals in inpatient treatment facilities, while none of the studies that found a positive correlation sampled people in inpatient treatment.

Another reason cited for the mixed results of previous studies is the scale used to measure sensation seeking. Sensation seeking has been traditionally measured by the Sensation Seeking Scale Form V (SSS-V). The SSS-V is made up of four subscales with 10 questions, each of which are combined to produce a single score (Zuckerman, 1996). It has been hypothesized, however, that dividing the SSS-V into subscales may produce a more clear connection with pathological gambling (Parke, Griffiths, & Irwing, 2004). The four subscales that comprise the SSS-V are Thrill and Adventure Seeking (TA), Experience Seeking (ES), Disinhibition (DS) – defined as a lack of self restraint – and Boredom Susceptibility (BS). Previous research suggests that the four traits should be broken into pairs, with TA/ES as one and DS/BS (also called “excitement seeking”) being the other. The excitement-seeking trait has been found to correlate strongly with alcohol use in the past, and the researchers hypothesized that it might also correlate with PG when separated from the other SSS-V scales.

To test this hypothesis, the authors interviewed 212 individuals about their gambling behavior and sensation seeking. The researchers found no significant correlation between the SSS-V scale as a whole and PG, but did find the excitement-seeking traits were significantly correlated with PG. They also found that the traits that assessed performing sensation seeking activities were preferred by PGs, while the traits that asked aboutdesireto perform sensation seeking activities appealed more to non-PGs. The reason for difference between PGs and non-PGs on this variable is not known. Practical confirmation of a theory like the potential of the SSS-V subscales to predict PG can form a foundation for future screening and prevention research, which may someday be able to target individuals at risk for PG before they have experienced severe symptoms.

More information on the article is available onPubMed. Have thoughts of questions? Tell us in the Comments section below.

References

Fortune, E. E., & Goodie, A. S. (2009). The Relationship Between Pathological Gambling and Sensation Seeking: The Role of Subscale Scores.Journal of Gambling Studies,26(3), 331-346. doi:10.1007/s10899-009-9162-8

Parke, A., Griffiths, M., & Irwing, P. (2004). Personality traits in Pathological Gambling: Sensation Seeking, Deferment of Gratification and Competitiveness as Risk Factors.Addiction Research & Theory,12(3), 201-212. doi:10.1080/1606635310001634500

Zuckerman, M. (1996). Item revisions in the Sensation Seeking Scale Form V (SSS-V).Personality and Individual Differences,20(4), 515. doi:10.1016/0191-8869(95)00195-6

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New Study Reveals Public Perceptions Of Gambling Disorders And Recovery

Society’s beliefs about a health condition can have a huge impact on the people who suffer from the disorder. Public opinion can influence public health policy, public and private harm minimization efforts, research funds, and treatment support. At the individual level, negative public views of a disease and the stigma it creates can strongly discourage individuals from admitting that they have the problem and seeking treatment. There is little data available on public opinion of gambling disorders; however, a new study published in theJournal of Gambling Studiesfills this void with a systematic examination of public opinion on gambling disorders (Cunningham, Cordingley, Hodgins, & Toneatto, 2011).

Researchers conducted telephone surveys with 8,467 adults in the Toronto area, questioning people on their opinions of how to best understand gambling disorders (as a “disease or illness”, “wrongdoing”, “habit, not disease”, or “addiction similar to drug addiction”), whether people with gambling disorders can get well on their own or must seek treatment to improve, and whether people with gambling disorders can reduce their gambling to that of a social gambler or if they need to quit altogether. The survey also gathered information on the gambling behavior and demographics of the respondents.

The researchers found that most people viewed gambling disorders as an addiction similar to drug addiction, with one-third seeing it as a habit and 17 percent viewing it as a form of wrongdoing. Respondents were split roughly in half as to whether treatment was needed to recover from a gambling disorder, and three out of four thought that abstinence from gambling activities was required for recovery. Examining the demographics, the researchers found that being female, married, younger, and without gambling problems were associated with believing that treatment and abstinence were necessary. Also, people who viewed gambling problems as a disease or addiction also believed that treatment and abstinence were needed for recovery.

The researchers noted that public perceptions reported in their study are very similar to those found in a 2003 study that examined the public’s views on alcohol use, with 71 percent of respondents saying that abstinence was required for recovery in both surveys (Cunningham, Blomqvist, & Cordingley, 2007). This popularly held belief is also the view of much of the scientific community as reflected by the upcoming changes in the way gambling disorders are defined by the American Psychiatric Association (as we highlighted in theApril 2010 edition of Issues & Insights).

Finally, the researchers concluded that people with gambling disorders were less likely than others to think that treatment and abstinence were required for recovery. This may be because many people who meet the clinical guidelines for a gambling disorder do not think they have a problem, and even those who believe they do have a problem are unlikely to seek treatment (Suurvali, Hodgins, Toneatto, & Cunningham, 2008).

More information on the article inJournal of Gambling Studiesis available onthe journal’s website. As always, we welcome your thoughts and questions in the Comments section below.

References

Cunningham, J. A., Blomqvist, J., & Cordingley, J. (2007). Beliefs about drinking problems: results from a general population telephone survey.Addictive Behaviors,32(1), 166-169. doi:10.1016/j.addbeh.2006.03.011

Cunningham, J. A., Cordingley, J., Hodgins, D. C., & Toneatto, T. (2011). Beliefs About Gambling Problems and Recovery: Results from a General Population Telephone Survey.Journal of Gambling Studies / Co-Sponsored by the National Council on Problem Gambling and Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming. doi:10.1007/s10899-010-9231-z

Suurvali, H., Hodgins, D., Toneatto, T., & Cunningham, J. (2008). Treatment seeking among Ontario problem gamblers: results of a population survey.Psychiatric Services (Washington, D.C.),59(11), 1343-1346. doi:10.1176/appi.ps.59.11.1343

NCRG staffResearch Updategambling addictiongambling disordersnew researchstigma

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New Research On Minorities And Gambling

Gambling and gambling related problems are common among all racial and ethnic groups in the United States, but there is new evidence that African Americans are more likely to experience gambling-related problems than white Americans. Differences in problem and pathological Gambling (PPG) among people of different races are not well understood. A better understanding of gambling behaviors, gambling problem severity and other psychiatric disorders associated with PPG in minority populations could benefit gambling prevention and treatment programs. For this reason we have devoted the February edition ofIssues & Insightsto new research on the differences in gambling behavior and PPG between black and white Americans.

A recently published study by Dr. Declan Barry and colleagues(Barry, Stefanovics, Desai, & Potenza, 2011)analyzed data from The National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), the largest prevalence study of psychiatric disorders in the United States(Petry, Stinson, & Grant, 2005). Dr. Barry and co-authors compared black and white respondents on measures of gambling behavior, PPG, mental health, and the co-occurrence of mental disorders and gambling. In the following interview, Dr. Barry clarifies and expands on the findings in his recent paper.

I & I: What are the major findings of this study?

Dr. Barry: Among a nationally representative sample of 32,316 black and white adults in the United States, black respondents (.96 percent) were more likely than white respondents (45 percent) to exhibit past-year PPG. Higher proportions of black problem or pathological gamblers, as compared with white ones, were women (49 percent vs. 32 percent). Elevated rates of anxiety, mood, and substance use disorders, as well as personality disorders, were found among black and white problem or pathological gamblers. Black respondents were more likely than white ones to exhibit a stronger relationship between subsyndromal[i]gambling and any mood disorder, hypomania, and any substance-related disorder.

I & I: Are these findings consistent with past research on this subject?

Dr. Barry: Consistent with previous research, we found that black respondents exhibited higher rates of PPG than white respondents. Our finding that higher proportions of black problem or pathological gamblers were women, as compared to the white population, is consistent with prior findings that racial minority women may be at particularly high risk of PPG. Similar to previous studies, we found that PPG was associated with elevated rates of Axis I and Axis II[ii]psychopathology for black and white respondents. However, we also found that, in comparison to white respondents, black respondents were more likely to exhibit a stronger relationship between subsyndromal gambling and any mood disorder, hypomania, and any substance-related disorder.

I & I: How do these findings compare to research about minorities and other addictive disorders such as substance use disorders?

Dr. Barry: Studies have found that community-dwelling (that is, non-institutionalized) blacks and whites generally have similar prevalence rates of psychiatric disorders; however, more African Americans belong to at-risk groups (e.g., homeless) that typically exhibit higher rates of psychopathology. Prior research using NESARC data has found that blacks and whites exhibit comparable rates of past-year drug use disorders.

I & I: Why is it important to study the effects of race or gender on gambling disorders?

Dr. Barry: In the long term, an increased understanding of the effects of race or gender may provide important information about the development and maintenance of PPG and may suggest targeted treatment for PPG. For example, possible differences in motivation among men and women or among individuals from different racial backgrounds may suggest optimal intervention strategies. Thus, if differences emerge on proclivity to engage in gambling to escape distress, these differences might be specifically targeted by clinicians.

I & I: How can findings like these help clinicians working with people with gambling problems, or public health policy makers?

Dr. Barry: The robust associations between PPG and Axis I and II disorders offer support for the routine assessment of psychiatric disorders among patients seeking gambling treatment. Our findings suggest that public health policy makers might benefit from attending to subsyndromal levels of gambling (and not solely PPG) since race-related differences in the association between subsyndromal levels of gambling and mood as well as substance-use disorders were found in the present study.

Declan Barry, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine, and director of the APT Foundation Inc, Pain Treatment Services. Dr. Barry’s research is aimed at: (1) developing and evaluating treatments for patients with co-occurring opioid addiction (e.g., prescription opiates, heroin) and chronic pain (i.e., physical pain lasting at least 3 months); and (2) examining the role of sociocultural factors in the occurrence and treatment of addictions (e.g., gambling, eating disorders, substance-related disorders).

References

Barry, D. T., Stefanovics, E. A., Desai, R. A., & Potenza, M. N. (2011). Differences in the Associations between Gambling Problem Severity and Psychiatric Disorders among Black and White Adults: Findings from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions.The American Journal on Addictions,20(1), 69-77. doi:10.1111/j.1521-0391.2010.00098.x

Petry, N. M., Stinson, F. S., & Grant, B. F. (2005). Comorbidity of DSM-IV pathological gambling and other psychiatric disorders: results from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions.The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry,66(5), 564-574.

[i]A person with subsyndromal gambling exhibits gambling-related behaviors and problems that do not meet the threshold for pathological gambling.

[ii]Axis I refers to psychiatric disorders such as depression or bipolar disorder, while Axis II refers to personality disorders such as borderline personality disorder or antisocial personality disorder.

Declan T. Barry, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Psychiatry Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of MedicineIssues & Insights

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NCRG Announces 2011 Funding Opportunities

The National Center for Responsible Gaming is pleased to announce it has allocated more than $700,000 for grants in support of research on prevention and treatment of gambling disorders in 2011. The grants, ranging from $10,000 to $100,000 per year, will be awarded on a competitive basis. Applicants may seek one-year Exploration and Seed Grants to fund pilot data, a new direction on an existing project, secondary analysis of existing data, or small, self-contained research projects. Large Grants of up to $75,000 per year for two years are available for more extensive research projects.

The NCRG is dedicated to fostering the next generation of gambling researchers and, therefore, has added two career development awards for 2011. The Early Stage Investigator Grant and the Postdoctoral Fellowship are intended for researchers within 10 years and five years of their terminal degrees.

The NCRG also announced a request for applications for the development and testing of an online screening and brief intervention for college students. The resulting program will be located on the NCRG’s website, collegegambling.org, which is scheduled to launch in 2011.

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New Study Examines Potential Of Alzheimer’s Drug For Treating Pathological Gambling

Although pathological gambling (PG) has been recognized as a psychological disorder since 1980, there are still no FDA-approved medications to treat the disorder. Until now, most pharmacological treatments for PG have been adapted from treatments from other addictive disorders such as alcohol dependence. A recently published article in the journalPsychopharmacologyreports on the use of a drug from an unexpected source: a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease (Grant, Chamberlain, Odlaug, Potenza, & Kim, 2010).

Previous pharmacological research has suggested that people with PG experience imbalances in the part of the brain that mediates urges and the part that mediates cognitive control. Pharmacological treatments for PG, such as naltrexone, which is also used for reducing cravings for alcohol, have generally focused solely on reducing the urge to gamble. However, the authors of this study conjecture that memantine, a drug used to treat people with Alzheimer’s disease, has the potential to improve cognitive control in addition to reducing urges to gamble. The researchers hypothesized that the same chemical properties that improve brain function in people with Alzheimer’s disease may improve the brain function that mediates cognitive control.

To test this concept, the researchers conducted a pilot study that followed 29 subjects who took the drug for 10 weeks. The researchers found that, after 10 weeks, the participants significantly decreased the amount of time and money they spent gambling, and reported significantly lower desire to gamble. More promising than this, the participants were no longer significantly worse than the control group at tasks that test impulsivity and, most importantly, cognitive flexibility[i]. These improvements in brain function suggest that memantine should be further explored as a novel pharmacological treatment for PG.

More information on the article inPsychopharmacologyis available onthe journal’s website. What are your thoughts about drug treatments for gambling disorders? Tell us in the Comments section below.

References

Grant, J. E., Chamberlain, S. R., Odlaug, B. L., Potenza, M. N., & Kim, S. W. (2010). Memantine shows promise in reducing gambling severity and cognitive inflexibility in pathological gambling: a pilot study.Psychopharmacology,212(4), 603-612. doi:10.1007/s00213-010-1994-5

[i]Cognitive flexibility is the ability to switch behavioral responses according to the context of a situation. At the beginning of the trial,participants with PG had significantly worse cognitive flexibility scores when compared to controls.

NCRG staffResearch Updategambling addictionJon E. Grantnew researchtreatment for pathological gamblingUniversity of Minnesota

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New Research On Youth Video Game Playing

With publication of theDSM-5likely to move Pathological Gambling from its current clinical classification as an Impulse Control Disorder to a new category called “Addiction and Related Disorders,” there is growing interest in other potential “behavioral addictions.” One such behavior, video game playing, is the subject of a new study conducted by researchers at Yale University School of Medicine and published in the journalPediatrics(Desai, Krishnan-Sarin, Cavallo, & Potenza, 2010).

The researchers surveyed 4,028 representative adolescents about their video game playing, substance use, physical and mental health, high risk behaviors, and demographics. The results showed that moderate video game playing was not associated with any negative health outcomes in boys, but girls who played video games were more likely to have gotten into a serious fight or carried a weapon to school. One reason for this gender difference may be that playing video games is normative for boys (over 75 percent of boys surveyed played video games) but not for girls. The researchers cautioned against blaming video games for making girls more aggressive as it is equally possible that more aggressive girls are drawn to video game playing.

About 5 percent of the adolescents surveyed met the researchers’ criteria for problematic gaming (defined as trying to cut back, experiencing an irresistible urge to play, and experiencing a growing tension that can only be relieved by playing video games), with boys meeting the criteria about twice as often as girls. Adolescents meeting the criteria for problematic gaming were also more likely to regularly smoke cigarettes, use drugs, be depressed, and have been in serious fights.

More information on the article inPediatricsis available onthe journal’s website. What are your thoughts on this or other possible behavioral addictions? Tell us in the Comments section below.

References

Desai, R. A., Krishnan-Sarin, S., Cavallo, D., & Potenza, M. N. (2010). Video-gaming among high school students: health correlates, gender differences, and problematic gaming.Pediatrics,126(6), e1414-1424. doi:10.1542/peds.2009-2706

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Balancing Research And Respect: Researching Indigenous Populations

Gambling among ethnic and racial minorities, especially indigenous groups, is an important and largely untapped area for research, which has historically fallen short of its potential because of tensions between researchers and aboriginal peoples. For example, in the U.S., many Native Americans believe that research conducted on their tribes, especially projects on addictive behaviors, has been characterized by unethical practices (as discussed in ourJan. 2010Issues & Insights). Reminding us that these issues have worldwide import, a recent study published in theAustralian and New Zealand Journal of Public Healthexplores the relationships between researchers and Indigenous Australians, and proposes several practical solutions to these problems in the context of a community survey of gambling behaviors of aboriginal Australians (Hing, Breen, & Gordon, 2010).

The authors describe their preparation to conduct a survey on what they perceived to be “a highly sensitive issue – gambling and gambling problems” (Hing, Breen, & Gordon, 2010, p. 547). Using the 2006 report by Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council (National Health and Medical Research Council, 2006), they discuss the ethical values that guided their study as well as the steps they took to complete their research project with the full support of the community. The researchers emphasized respect and reciprocity in their research design and included several benefits for the community being surveyed directly in their grant proposal (such as jobs for 26 research assistants, an art contest in the local schools, a formal presentation of results to the elders of the community, and a $10,000 community donation).

The researchers also discuss the tension between culturally respectful research and ideal research methods. For example, the research assistants hired from the community surveyed their friends and family to build confidence before going out into the community. Surveying friends and family has the potential to introduce bias into the study but was a necessary step for the inexperienced research assistants. This bias would not have been introduced had the researchers brought in professional research assistants from outside community, but the researchers decided that the small amount of bias introduced was far outweighed by winning the trust of the community.

More information on the article in theAustralian and New Zealand Journal of Public Healthis available on the journal’swebsite. What are your thoughts about culturally respectful research practices? Tell us in the Comments section below.

References

Hing, N., Breen, H., & Gordon, A. (2010). Respecting cultural values: conducting a gambling survey in an Australian Indigenous community.Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health,34(6), 547-553. doi:10.1111/j.1753-6405.2010.00624.x

National Health and Medical Research Council. (2006).Keeping research on track: a guide for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples about health research ethics. Canberra. Retrieved fromhttp://www.nhmrc.gov.au/publications/synopses/e65syn.htm

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