The Trump administration has stopped funding to at least 34 alcohol research projects awarded $31m, with 58% still to be paid out, according to statistics collated by Alcohol Review (table below). Around three-quarters involve studies of sexual and gender minorities, or SGMs.
The study losing the most is one on alcohol drinking and HIV risk among sexual minority youth underway at Nortwestern University, which is now short of 80% of its $2.4m award. The biggest award halted is one for a study looking for neurobiological susceptibility among young people to peer influence around alcohol and other drugs from the University of North Carolina. Over 60% of its $2.9m award is not yet paid.
The next biggest award suspended is a Columbia University study on the role of alcohol in domestic aggression among lesbian and bisexual women, on average bigger drinkers than heterosexual counterparts. It is missing half its grant of $2.8bn. A University of Wisconsin study of intimate partner violence among gay, lesbian and bisexual people has had the second half its $2.6m award halted.
Terminated studies of broader populations include: A $1.5m study of the use of telehealth in alcohol treatment, from Harvard Medical School; A $400,000 study from Columbia University which was going to look at the “behavioural cost of carbon”; And a $130,000 Columbia study stopped half way through examining the relationship between deforestation and alcohol and tobacco use in Indonesia. ■
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