ABSTRACT
Compared to many other fields of epidemiological research, for example on somatic diseases, the findings of population studies of alcoholism tend to show some vagueness. Nevertheless, even though many questions of definition and measurement were still unresolved, and research standards therefore unsatisfactory, during the last 15-20 years the problems of alcohol research have been tackled in the Federal Republic of Germany more intensively than in earlier periods. The number of admissions of alcoholics to psychiatric hospitals has increased in all parts of the Federal Republic of Germany; between 1976 and 1980 in Bavaria there was an increase of 24 per cent. The use of epidemiological methods in aetiological research in particular to study the development of alcoholism against the background patterns of alcohol consumption in the general population is only now commencing.
