Reaching Non-Four-Year College Emerging Adults with Brief Alcohol Interventions: An Investigation of Service User Preferences and Implementation Determinants - PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT
In the United States, emerging adults consume alcohol at higher rates than people in any other age group.
Relative to four-year college students and graduates, emerging adults who are not students or graduates of
four-year colleges (N4YCEAs) experience greater alcohol-related health consequences, a health disparity that
persists across the lifespan. In recognition of this disparity, the NIAAA and the U.S. Institute of Medicine have
both identified improving the provision of care to N4YCEAs as a significant public health priority.
Evidence-based brief alcohol interventions (BAIs) have demonstrated effectiveness among N4YCEAs in
multiple clinical trials, rendering them ideal candidates for broadscale implementation. Unfortunately, there is
limited availability of BAIs in the settings where N4YCEAs typically receive services and N4YCEAs are unlikely
to engage with alcohol-focused interventions even when they are available. To expand the impact of BAIs for
N4YCEAs, appealing BAIs must be implemented in settings that N4YCEAs frequent. Therefore, research into
N4YCEA preferences is an essential step toward increasing the impact of BAIs for N4YCEAs and decreasing
the alcohol-related health inequity experienced by this underserved population.
The proposed project seeks to identify the preferences of U.S. N4YCEAs for engaging in BAIs, to examine
local perspectives on the implementation of BAIs in the Memphis area, and to identify the barriers and
facilitators to implementing a BAI in a community setting in Memphis. We will employ a community-engaged
approach, collaborating with a community advisory board throughout the project. Our specific aims are 1) to
use semi-structured interviews with local and national N4YCEAs to understand where N4YCEAs may be open
to engaging with BAIs, 2) to use a discrete choice experiment to investigate the preferences of U.S. N4YCEAs
for engaging in BAIs, and 3) to use semi-structured interviews with N4YCEAs, providers, and administrators to
investigate the facilitators and barriers to implementing a BAI that N4YCEAs will find appealing in a community
setting in Memphis, enabling the identification of ideal implementation strategies that future implementation
researchers can use to achieve these outcomes.
This project lays the foundation for an innovative program of research. Through this project – and with support
from a multidisciplinary team of expert mentors – the applicant will develop the capacity to conduct mixed
methods community-engaged implementation research, and he will expand his expertise in BAI research. The
supervised experience from this project will empower him to become an independent investigator conducting
mixed methods community-engaged research on the adaptation and implementation of brief interventions to
reduce the health burden of alcohol use.
