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DOH unveils online alcohol screening tool

• During the past year, how often do you have a drink with alcohol?

• During the past year, how often did you have six or more drinks at one time?

v During the past year, how often were you not able to stop drinking once you had started?

Those are the questions the state Department of Health and Health Care Authority are asking in the new ePrevention tool, an online screening tool to combat alcohol misuse.

For those whose responses indicate potentially dangerous alcohol use, the tool connects them with nationwide and New Mexico-specific resources for people hoping to reduce their alcohol intake.

“We’re hoping that this will bring some better awareness to people. ... They can and should assess their own drinking behavior, and this gives them a tool to do it,” Rebecca Neudecker, section manager for the Office of Alcohol Misuse Prevention at the state Department of Health, said in an interview.

A tool like this has particular relevance in New Mexico, which had the highest alcohol-related death rate in the country in 2021, Neudecker said. More than 2,000 New Mexico residents — six people per day — died due to excessive drinking that year, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In addition to death, excessive alcohol use is associated with cancer, heart disease, anxiety and depression, learning and memory problems, liver disease, digestive issues, violence and motor vehicle crashes, Department of Health data shows.

The screening tool is the result of a partnership between the two state agencies as well as CHESS Health, a New York-based company that creates technology to aid in addiction management and recovery.

The tool could prove useful in doctors’ offices for providers to assess patients’ alcohol intake, according to Tami Spellbring, deputy director for Clinical and Prevention Services at the Health Care Authority.

“This screening tool will assist medical providers, social workers and mental health professionals in helping New Mexicans get the support they need,” Spellbring said in a news release.

“Improving access to online screening and intervention for alcohol misuse is a much-needed step forward,” Spellbring added.

But the online tool also works without a provider — making it a good option for those who don’t visit a primary care provider regularly, Neudecker noted.

“It allows people to assess where they are privately — if they want to do that, if their drinking is reaching a level that they need to be concerned about,” she said.

 
 
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