What we do
CASCADE: Calibrated Agent Simulations for Combined Analysis of Drinking Etiologies
CASCADE is a major new alcohol policy modelling project funded by the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).
This project is an international collaboration between researchers at four world-leading centres in alcohol studies and policy modelling:
- the Sheffield Alcohol Research Group at the University of Sheffield, UK
- the Alcohol Research Group at the Public Health Institute in California
- the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto
- the New York University College of Global Public Health.
Alcohol poisoning and liver disease are two of the largest causes of death in middle-aged people in both the US and England, and both are strongly related to excessive alcohol consumption.
CASCADE will develop new computer models of alcohol use which will draw on existing theories for why people drink, and seek novel combinations of these theories in order to better explain the changes in alcohol use we observe in society.
These models will be designed to provide transparency over the causal relationships that are driving alcohol use and consequent levels of poisoning and liver disease.
They will also provide projections for how the levels of these harms might change under different possible futures, both with and without policy interventions.
CASCADE will provide policymakers with insight into how these harms have developed over the last 40 years and guide development of new policies to reduce their prevalence.