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Naturalistic Influences on Alcohol Problems in College

Principal Investigator

Nancy Barnett Associate Professor (Research) Nancy_Barnett@brown.edu

Funding Source

NIAAA

Description

Co-Investigators: Drs. Suzanne Colby, Christopher Kahler, Peter Monti, Tracy O’Leary, Donald Corriveau, and Allan Fingeret. The purpose of this study is to examine processes of naturalistic change in drinking among college students. Factors that may be related to the progression and resolution of problem drinking among college students include the experience (or accumulation) of adverse alcohol events, peer and parent influences, institutional (college) characteristics, gender and race/ethnicity, impulsivity, alcohol expectancies, and prior experience with alcohol. This project is a longitudinal study with three waves of survey data collection (pre-college, freshman, and sophomore year) with three cohorts of students at three colleges, oversampling for minority students (anticipated N = 820). In addition to these annual surveys, participants also are screened bi-weekly throughout their freshman and sophomore years using a web-based measure to detect the occurrence of specific alcohol-related adverse events. Students who have events are randomly selected and then randomly assigned to either an immediate post-event interview or a no-interview control group (anticipated N = 328). Event interviews measure students’ reactions, attributions, consequences and anticipated consequences of the event, their peer, parent, and campus responses to the event, and their intention to change. Both groups are interviewed again three months after their events. Conducting interviews very proximal to adverse alcohol-related events will provide information about how naturalistic experiences and subsequent social network interventions predict the later course of alcohol problems. Including a control group will allow us to measure reactivity to the event debriefing interviews. This five-year project is funded by NIAAA for total costs of $3,290,694. It is now in its third year of data collection.