BACKGROUND: Alcohol consumption and its interaction with disease, medication use, and functional status may result in serious health problems, but little information exists about the national prevalence of alcohol-related health risk in older adults. OBJECTIVE: To estimate the prevalence of harmful and hazardous alcohol use and the prevalence of consumption in excess of National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) recommendations, in people aged 65 and older, and by sex and race/ethnicity sub-group. DESIGN: Cross-sectional, using data from the 2005-2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey of the non-institutionalized U.S. population. PARTICIPANTS: One thousand and eighty-three respondents aged 65 and older who consume alcohol. MAIN MEASURES: Participants' alcohol consumption was classified as Harmful, Hazardous, or Healthwise, in the context of their specific health status, using the Alcohol-Related Problems Survey classification algorithm. KEY RESULTS: Overall, 14.5 % of older drinkers (95 % CI: 12.1 %, 16.8 %) consumed alcohol above the NIAAA's recommended limits. However, when health status was taken into account, 37.4 % of older drinkers (95 % CI: 34.9 %, 40.0 %) had Harmful consumption and 53.3 % (95 % CI: 50.1 %, 56.6 %) had either Hazardous or Harmful consumption. Among light/moderate drinkers, the proportions were 17.7 % (95 % CI: 14.7 %, 20.7 %) and 28.0 % (95 % CI: 24.8 %, 31.1 %), respectively. Male drinkers had significantly greater odds of Hazardous/ Harmful consumption than female drinkers (OR=2.14 [95 % CI: 1.77, 2.6]). Black drinkers had worse health status and significantly greater odds of Hazardous/ Harmful consumption than white drinkers (OR=1.49; 95 % CI: 1.02, 2.17), despite having no greater prevalence of drinking in excess of NIAAA-recommended limits. CONCLUSION: Most older Americans who drink are light/moderate drinkers, yet substantial proportions of such drinkers drink in a manner that is either harmful or hazardous to their health. Older adults with risky alcohol

A-IQOLS provides a reliable, valid, and unique assessment of the patient-perceived negative effect of asthma on QoL that is suitable for use in asthma clinical research and potentially in clinical care. Further studies are needed in diverse patient populations. QOLS, a measure of current QoL, is less sensitive to disease status changes but might be useful in characterizing study populations, in treatment adherence research, and as a clinical and research tool in patients with multiple, severe, and/or life-limiting chronic conditions.

A-IQOLS is valid for research and potentially clinical use in demographically and clinically diverse patients.

Abstracts inadequate time windows for identifying non-drug causes, failure to consider laboratory results (e.g., hepatitis serology), incomplete lists of ICD-9 codes for non-drug causes, and inability to extract information from physician progress notes. Conclusions: Future work related to the development of an electronic causality assessment tool based on the RUCAM should focus on improving Criteria 5 by using wider time windows to identify non-drug cases, laboratory results, and natural language processing. Background/Aims: Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS) and toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN) are rare, life-threatening cutaneous reactions that may occur following exposure to certain medications, including antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). No reliable incidence estimates of SJS/TEN for US populations have been calculated since the introduction of ICD-9 codes specific for SJS/TEN in October 2008. This study seeks to: 1) investigate the incidence of SJS/TEN using retrospective case identification, 2) test the positive predictive values of ICD-9 codes prior-/post-October 2008, and 3) pilot the feasibility of conducting a population-based pharmacogenomic study. Methods: With input from dermatologists, pharmacoepidemiologists, and pharmacogeneticists at FDA, HealthCore, and 11 HMORN sites, we validated ICD-9 codes associated with SJS/TEN in 3 cohorts: 1) patients with an inpatient code of 695.1x between 01/01/01-12/31/08; 2) codes 695.12-695.15 from 08/01/08-08/31/12; and 3) codes 279.5, 279.51, 279.53, 695.8, 695.81, 693.0x, 694.8x, 694.4x or diagnosis codes 692.9, E85x.x-E858. 9, 693.8, 692.89, 695.89, 695.1x, 692.3x, 695.0 in an inpatient setting plus specific drug exposure between 01/01/01-08/31/12. We extracted a standardized clinical and laboratory dataset. A sample of 265 potential SJS/ TEN cases at 5 sites was selected for adjudication by medical chart review. Statistical models will be created to estimate the total number of SJS/TEN cases at all sites based on the positive predictive value of the case identification algorithm. To pilot the feasibility of a pharmacogenomic study, we estimated the number of living cases available, contacted potential cases, and tested 100 random DNA samples from the Marshfield Clinic Personalized Medicine Research Project for HLA-A*3101/HLA-B*1502 alleles to establish a control source. Results: A total of 54,049 patients was identified from electronic records: 3,058 in cohort 1; 1,733 in cohort 2; and 49,258 in cohort 3. Potential cases (n = 9) were identified and will be invited to participate in a genetic study. Among the 100 samples genotyped, 5 were positive for HLA-A*3101 and none were positive for HLA-B*1502, consistent with known frequencies. Conclusions: We identified a large number of potential SJS/TEN cases using code-based algorithms that will be used to determine the incidence of these events and to plan a larger follow-up study of specific AEDs and genomic factors.