Psychological Sciences faculty honored for research on addiction

by Rachel Kaatmann

Kristina Jackson is only 34 years old and is already an internationally recognized researcher in the field of psychology. She is the recipient of a 2004 young investigator’s award from the IVO Addiction Research Institute in Rotterdam.

Jackson received the biennial award for outstanding work in the area of alcohol studies. She presented an overview of her research findings and was honored at the International Council on Alcohol Addictions conference in Venice, Italy, where she received the young investigator’s award.

Kenneth Sher, Curator's Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences and Jackson’s mentor, encouraged her to apply for the award.

"Receiving this award is a sign of distinction," he says. "It means senior researchers have identified her as an upcoming star in the profession and respect her greatly for her research contributions."

When Jackson arrived at MU in fall 1997 as a post-doctoral research associate, she began working on Sher’s Alcohol, Health and Behavior project. The project studied factors predicting young adult alcohol abuse and dependence. Jackson used a sample that was previously collected by Sher, which followed the same 490 participants since 1987.

"Over the course of 10 years, we found that despite rates of heavy alcohol consumption and problems, young adults tend to remit, or ‘mature out’ of problematic alcohol involvement," Jackson says.

She also examines the causal relation between drinking and smoking and the extent to which the two substances share common risk factors.

"Our most interesting finding is that smokers did not have greater expectancies about the positive effects of alcohol and were not more likely to also take part in delinquent acts unless they also drank," she says. "Masked effects such as these permit us to learn new information that cannot be obtained by separately examining predictors of drinking and predictors of smoking."

Jackson received grants from the National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and the Alcohol Beverage Medical Research Foundation to fund her research on alcohol and tobacco comorbidity. She earned the title of research assistant professor after receiving funding of her own.

In her current work, funded by a grant from NIAAA, Jackson tries to explain the variability among individuals in drinking over time, describing the course of drinking over adolescence and young adulthood. She is interested in why some students continue partying after college whereas others "mature out."  "It’s amazing how much some people drink at the age of 18 and 19 and still manage to be successful," she says.

The study also has examined gender effects and family history of alcoholism. "We have found that participants with a family history of alcoholism, generally existing with the father, are less likely to mature out." she adds.

Jackson says that what predicts alcohol consumption can be different for men and women. "We found that men generally drink more and have more drinking problems, but women are more likely to become dependent on alcohol," she says. "We have also found that depression and a history of stress in the childhood home tend to be more associated with alcohol abuse and dependence for women than for men."

Her most recent study, which includes a Web-based survey, examines the relationship between drinking and smoking on a daily basis.

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Additional links:

Kristina Jackson
Department of Psychological Sciences

Addiction Research Institute Foundation

National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
Alcohol Beverage Medical Research Foundation

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