Diffusion of an idea: Jellinek's disease concept in Latin America.

This paper examines the diffusion of Jellinek's disease concept of alcoholism in Latin America and its impact on research and prevention in those countries. After Jellinek's visit to Chile in 1956, epidemiological research in that country received a great impulse. Marconi published a series of papers where he put forward concepts of alcoholism based on Jellinek's work. These ideas were well received by alcohol epidemiologists and became standard definitions employed in a series of epidemiological studies in Chile, Argentina, Peru, Brazil, Costa Rica, and Mexico. Since then the disease concept has been the main idea governing professionals' understanding of alcohol problems in Latin America.