Dr. Adam Sherk

Adam is a Scientist with CISUR and a Researcher with our WHO/PAHO Collaborating Centre for Alcohol and Public Health Policy. His research focuses on substance use epidemiology and alcohol policy research. He created the International Model of Alcohol Harms and Policy, an alcohol research platform used by countries worldwide to estimate alcohol-caused harms. He has created or consulted on national alcohol harms monitoring projects in Australia, Finland, Sweden, New Zealand and the US, in addition to Canada.

His current projects and interests include the Canadian Substance Use Costs and Harms project, estimating the cancer prevention potential of Canada-wide alcohol policies (spoiler alert: a high potential!), and the Canadian Alcohol/Ethanol Supply (CA/ES) study, which monitors and characterizes the magnitude of the alcohol/ethanol supply in Canada.

Publications

• Alcohol Consumption and the Physical Availability of Take-Away Alcohol: Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses of the Days and Hours of Sale and Outlet Density
• An assessment of federal alcohol policies in Canada and priority recommendations: Results from the 3rd Canadian Alcohol Policy Evaluation Project
• Assessing the impacts of Saskatchewan's minimum alcohol pricing regulations on alcohol-related crime
• Association Between Daily Alcohol Intake and Risk of All-Cause Mortality
• A systematic review of relative risks for the relationship between chronic alcohol use and the occurrence of disease
• At-a-glance – The alcohol deficit: Canadian government revenue and societal costs from alcohol
• Attributable fractions for substance use in relation to crime
• Book chapter: Lessons learned from the alcohol regulation perspective
• Calorie Intake from Alcohol in Canada: Why New Labelling Requirements are Necessary
• Canadian Alcohol Policy Evaluation (CAPE): Federal Results
• Canadian Alcohol Policy Evaluation (CAPE): Policy Domain Results (Federal)
• Canadian Alcohol Policy Evaluation (CAPE) 3.0: Best Practice Policy Leaders (Provincial/Territorial)
• Canadian Alcohol Policy Evaluation (CAPE) 3.0: Methodology and Evidence (Federal and Provincial/Territorial)
• Canadian Alcohol Policy Evaluation (CAPE) 3.0 Project: Policy Domain Results Summary (Provincial/Territorial).
• Canadian Substance Use Costs and Harms 2007-2014
• Canadian Substance Use Costs and Harms in the Provinces and Territories (2007-2014)
• Commentary: The burden of alcohol on health care during COVID‐19
• Commentary: Time for carefully tailored set of alcohol policies to reduce health‐care burden and mitigate potential unintended consequences?
• Commentary – Problematic substance use or problematic substance use policies?
• Does Drinking Within Low-Risk Guidelines Prevent Harm? Implications for High-Income Countries Using the International Model of Alcohol Harms and Policies
• Estimated Deaths Attributable to Excessive Alcohol Use Among US Adults Aged 20 to 64 Years, 2015 to 2019
• Estimating the public health impact of disbanding a government alcohol monopoly: application of new methods to the case of Sweden
• Estimation of the impacts of substance use on workplace productivity: a hybrid human capital and prevalence-based approach applied to Canada
• Évaluation des politiques canadiennes sur l’alcool (CAPE) 3.0 Résultats fédéraux
• Expanding attributable fraction applications to outcomes wholly attributable to a risk factor
• Finnish alcohol policy at the crossroads: The health, safety and economic consequences of alternative systems to manage the retail sale of alcohol
• How many alcohol-attributable deaths & hospitalizations could be prevented by alternative pricing and taxation policies? Modelling impacts on alcohol consumption, revenues & related harms in Canada
• Improving Estimates of Alcohol-Attributable Deaths in the United States: Impact of Adjusting for the Underreporting of Alcohol Consumption
• Infographic: Alcohol and Calories
• Méthodologie et revue des éléments probants (à l’échelle fédérale, provinciale et territoriale)
• New perspectives on how to formulate alcohol drinking guidelines: Response to commentaries
• Projet 3.0 de l’Évaluation des politiques canadiennes sur l’alcool (CAPE) : Résumé des résultats par domaines d’action (provinciaux et territoriaux)
• The effect on emergency department visits of raised alcohol minimum prices in Saskatchewan, Canada
• The International Model of Alcohol Harms and Policies: A New Method for Estimating Alcohol Health Harms With Application to Alcohol-Attributable Mortality in Canada
• The Potential Health Impact of an Alcohol Minimum Unit Price in Québec: An Application of the International Model of Alcohol Harms and Policies
• The potential of alcohol labelling to promote public health and safety in Canada: A Rapid Review
• Underestimation of alcohol consumption in cohort studies and implications for alcohol's contribution to the Global Burden of Disease
• What are the public health and safety benefits of the Swedish government alcohol monopoly?
• Who consumes most of the cannabis in Canada? Profiles of cannabis consumption by quantity
• Why do only some cohort studies find health benefits from low volume alcohol use? A systematic review and meta-analysis of study characteristics that may bias mortality risk estimates

Projects

• Alcohol and Health Web App
• An estimation of the health and economic costs of alcohol use in Finland and the impact on these of the privatization of the Finnish government alcohol monopoly, Alko
• A review of the evidence regarding alcohol and COVID-19
• BC Alcohol and Other Drug (AOD) monitoring project
• BC Co/Lab
• Canadian Alcohol Policy Evaluation
• Developing an Internet based resource for reporting alcohol attributable harm in Australia
• Estimates of Alcohol-Attributable Deaths and Years of Potential Life Lost in the United States and Analytic Methods
• Estimating the impact of alcohol use on health harms and the effects of having different price policies in Quebec
• Estimation of impacts on premature death, injury and hospitalisation of alternative approaches to federal alcohol taxes
• Evaluation of the public health impacts of Systembolaget, the Swedish government alcohol monopoly
• Impact of alcohol labelling on health outcomes in Canada
• Modelling the relationship between tax and price policies and impacts on alcohol consumption and harms in different socio-economic groups in Canada
• Review of methodologies used to estimate alcohol health harms, analysis of low alcohol doses on health protection and comparison of drinking and alcohol-caused harms in Australia and Canada
• The economic costs of substance use in Canada (CSUCH)
• The International Model of Alcohol Harms and Policies (InterMAHP)
• The potential impact of alcohol minimum unit pricing and alcoholic beverage labelling as a cancer prevention intervention in Canada, by socioeconomic status, at the national, provincial and territorial levels