An EMA Investigation of Impaired Control Over Alcohol among Heavy Drinking College Students

About This Grant

ABSTRACT College student heavy drinking is a longstanding national public health concern and a top priority of the NIAAA. Nearly 1 in 3 college students engage in heavy drinking (4+/5+ drinks for women/men) and about 1 in 8 students engage in high-intensity drinking (8+/10+ drinks for women/men). Heavy drinking is associated with experiencing alcohol-related problems such as drinking and driving, sexual assault, injury, and even death. One critical predictor of heavy drinking is impaired control over alcohol, which consists of drinking for longer or consuming more drinks than one had planned, with a specific focus on violations of self-prescribed drinking limits. Impaired control is a critical prospective predictor of alcohol-related problems, a consistent cross- sectional predictor of heavy drinking, and an early indicator of alcohol use disorder later in life. The event-level nature of this construct suggests impaired control may be a novel target for momentary interventions to reduce heavy drinking among college students. However, few studies have assessed impaired control at the event- level, and no studies have explicitly examined violations of self-prescribed drinking limits (i.e., self-reported limits relative to actual number of drinks consumed or time spent drinking). Further, no prior studies have examined the event-level impacts of impaired control on acute alcohol outcomes (i.e., heavy drinking and alcohol-related problems), or the situational factors that could be targeted via intervention to reduce both impaired control and its potentially harmful effects. In this F31, the applicant, together with an excellent training team, will 1) assess direct relations between impaired control (i.e., whether and by how much one violates limits set before drinking on a given day) and alcohol outcomes (i.e., drink quantity; alcohol-related problems), controlling for between-person differences (e.g., baseline drinking) and 2) test situational (e.g., perceived behavioral control; drinking context) moderators of the relationships between impaired control and alcohol outcomes. The proposed study involves primary data collection of drinking behaviors and related constructs (i.e., perceived behavioral control, drinking context) using a 28-day ecological momentary assessment protocol. Results from the proposed study will enhance our understanding of event-level associations between impaired control over alcohol and alcohol outcomes and inform the development, delivery, and implementation of brief and momentary behavioral interventions targeting heavy drinking among college students. In addition to the study’s potential impact on the field and public health, the proposed project and training plan will prepare the applicant (Ms. Kalina) for a competitive post-doc and independent career as a scientist at a research-intensive university.