Data Management and Visualization - Research Topic

Research Dataset Selection - An Association of Alcohol Abuse on Cardio Vascular Health

Although not a medical student, human health and what impacts its negatively has always raised my curiosity. Thus, after going through multiple codebook and datasets, I have decided to use in the NESARC study conducted on around 43093 U.S citizens. I would like to study the association between alcohol abuse and occurrence of various Cardio Vascular health conditions.

Research Question

For my research topic I will be studying the association between alcohol abuse, quantity of abuse, duration of abuse, kind of intoxicant consumed on the occurrence of the following five cardio vascular medical conditions in the last 12 months:
  • Hyper Tension (High Blood Pressure)
  • Arteriosclerosis (Hardening of Artery)
  • Myocardial Infarction (Heart Attack)
  • Tachy Cardia (Rapid Heart Beat)
  • Angina Pectoris (Chest Pain)

My Code Book

After thorough study of the NESARC codebook, I have selected the following columns from the dataset for my study:
  • S2AQ20 - Duration (Years) of period of heaviest drinking
  • S2AQ21A -How often drank any alcohol during period of heaviest drinking
  • S2AQ21B - Number of drinks of any alcohol usually consumed on days when drank alcohol during period of heaviest drinking
  • S2AQ21C - Largest number of drinks of any alcohol consumed on days when drank alcohol during period of heaviest drinking
  • S2AQ21D -How often drank largest number of drinks of any alcohol during period of heaviest drinking
  • S2AQ22 - How often drank 5+ drinks of any alcohol during period of heaviest drinking
  • S2AQ23 - Main type of alcohol consumed during period of heaviest drinking
  • S2BQ1B1 - Happen in the last 12 months
  • S2BQ1C1 - Happen prior to last 12 months
  • S13Q6A1 - Had hardening of arteries or Arteriosclerosis in last 12 months
  • S13Q6A2 - Had high blood pressure or Hyper Tension in last 12 months
  • S13Q6A5 - Had chest pain or Angina Pectoris in last 12 months
  • S13Q6A6-Had rapid heartbeat or Tachycardia in last 12 months
  • S13Q6A7 - Had heart attack or Myocardial  Infarction in last 12 months
  The below screen shots from the NESARC codebook details down the above columns:












Literature Research

Multiple research articles on Google Scholar shows a complex relationship between 
Cardiovascular health and alcohol consumption. Association of some of these conditions may be dependent on the quantity and frequency of consumption.

Some studies show that low to moderate amount of alcohol consumption every day have no short term impact impact on healthy adults. Studies also show that binge drinking (more than 5 standard drinks in a sitting) has a definite short term increase in blood pressure. Long term impact were not covered in these studies.

References

My Hypothesis

My initial hypothesis is that alchol abuse has a negative impact on the cardiovascualar health of the consumer. Research literature also shows similar evidence. Evidences indicates a causal corelation between alcohol abuse and hyper tension. Further research shows corelation between hypertension and other cardiovascular medical conditions like Tachycardia, Myocardial Infarction and Arterioscleriosis. 
Based on further analysis of the dataset selected, i will try to see if the NESARC study also shows a similar trend.

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