Prof Emanuele Scafato, MD, MSc, is Director of the National Observatory on Alcohol (NOA) and of the WHO Collaborating Centre Research & Health Promotion on Alcohol , Senior Researcher at National Centre on Addictions and Doping at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità ( ISS, Nat. Inst. of Health), Rome, Italy, Gastroenterologist, epidemiologist former Director of the ISS Population’s Health and Health Determinants Unit. NOA performs research, assessment, prevention and training in Epidemiology and Public Health, formally appointed to provide the report and the data (by Law 125/2001) to be sent to the Parliament each year by the Minister of Health. The NOA is in charge, by decree of the Council of the Ministries, for the Italian monitoring system on alcohol SISMA.