Evaluation of Brief Intervention for Young Adult Alcohol-Related Risk Behaviors

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Brief personalized feedback interventions have been effective at reducing drinking and risky behavior among college students. Research evaluating the effect of brief personalized feedback interventions has yet to evaluate a web-based brief personalized feedback intervention that focuses on the integration of alcohol and risky behavior content by addressing the role of alcohol in risky behavior to reduce risk among college and non-college young adults. Most intervention trials have been conducted solely among college students resulting in a dearth of literature evaluating brief interventions among young adults who do not attend college. Thus, there is an important gap in considering the generalizability of empirically supported college interventions to broader young adult populations. The proposed research will examine a web-based personalized feedback intervention that integrates alcohol and risky behavior components to address alcohol consumption as a factor in risky behavior to reduce alcohol-related risky behavior among young adult drinkers aged 18-25. To accomplish this objective the study will enroll a community sample of 450 young adults aged 18-25 and assess them at 1-, and 6-months. We will evaluate the overall efficacy of the integrated intervention by comparing young adults randomly assigned to receive the integrated intervention (n=150) to a combined intervention (n=150) and an attention control group (n=150). We will examine whether changes in perceived descriptive norms, expectancies, protective behavioral strategies, and drinking mediate intervention efficacy. College student status, and related contextual factors, will be evaluated as moderators of intervention efficacy. The proposed study is both significant and innovative in that it will develop and evaluate a brief integrated alcohol and risky behavior intervention among a diverse, community sample of young adults attending and not attending college and will utilize social networking sites for screening and intervention delivery.