
REAL Parenting Alcohol and Substance Use App
Underage DrinkingAlcohol Use1 moreHigh school students' alcohol, nicotine, and marijuana use are major public health problems. Among the many consequences of these risky behaviors are impaired driving and impaired passenger fatalities as well as increased health risks. Both school administrators and parents have requested parent-based interventions (PBIs)for the general high school population that include content on alcohol, nicotine and marijuana use. In addition, digital materials are needed for the "on-the-go" parent. The proposed research will address this omission, curb the alarming trends noted above, and move the field forward by conducting a randomized controlled trial testing a modified, digital version of the Parent Handbook for the all high school students that includes additional content for parents to have broader discussions about combined alcohol nicotine and marijuana use alone (referred to as REAL Parenting). Parent-teen dyads will be invited to participate and complete baseline assessment and parents will receive the REAL Parenting or active control materials shortly afterwards. This will allow an examination of the impact of the RP on alcohol use, and associated consequences and sustained effects across the follow-up period.

Tailored Written Lifestyle Feedback in Colorectal Cancer Screening
LifestyleDiet Habit4 moreThis randomized controlled trial aims to investigate the effect of an individually tailored lifestyle feedback letter and a leaflet on lifestyle in the context of sigmoidoscopy screening.

Minocycline for Alcohol Use Disorder
Alcohol Use DisorderInflammation3 moreThe objective of this proposal is to advance medication development for alcohol use disorder by examining the efficacy and mechanisms of action of minocycline, a neuroimmune modulator, as a potential treatment. This study has important clinical implications, as the available treatments for alcohol use disorder are only modestly effective and testing novel medications is a high research priority.

Engineering an Online STI Prevention Program
Sexual BehaviorAlcohol Consumption1 moreThe overall objective of the proposed research is to reduce the incidence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among college students. The investigators propose to accomplish this by using the innovative, engineering-inspired multiphase optimization strategy (MOST) to develop a highly effective, appealing, economical, and readily scalable internet-delivered behavioral intervention targeting the intersection of alcohol use and sexual risk behavior. The rate of STIs on college campuses is alarming: one in four college students is diagnosed with an STI at least once during their college experience. Sexual activity when drinking alcohol is highly prevalent among college students. Alcohol use is known to contribute to the sexual risk behaviors that are most responsible for the transmission of STIs, namely unprotected sex, contact with numerous partners, and "hook-ups" (casual sexual encounters). Few interventions have been developed that explicitly target the intersection of alcohol use and sexual risk behaviors, and none have been optimized. In order to reduce the incidence of STI transmission among this and other high-risk groups, a new approach is needed. MOST is a comprehensive methodological framework that brings the power of engineering principles to bear on optimization of behavioral interventions. MOST enables researchers to experimentally test the individual components in an intervention to determine their effectiveness, indicating which components need to be revised and re-tested. Given the high rates of alcohol use and sex among college students, the college setting provides an ideal opportunity for intervening on alcohol use and sexual risk behaviors. The proposed study will include a diverse population of college students on 4 campuses which will increase the generalizability of the findings. The specific aims are to (1) develop and pilot test an initial set of online intervention components targeting the link between alcohol use and sexual risk behaviors, (2) use the MOST approach to build an optimized preventive intervention, and (3) evaluate the effectiveness of the newly optimized preventive intervention using a fully powered randomized controlled trial (RCT). This work will result in a new, more potent behavioral intervention that will reduce the incidence of STIs among college students in the US, and will lay the groundwork for a new generation of highly effective STI prevention interventions aimed at other subpopulations at risk.

Marijuana Use, Strength Training, and Alcohol Consumption (MUSTAC) Study
Chronic PainSelf-medication of pain by consuming alcohol and marijuana is common. However, the research regarding pain as a determinant for alcohol and marijuana use has relied on laboratory pain induction paradigms with limited clinical relevance. The study will assess demand for alcohol and marijuana before and after delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) induction in co-users. This will provide a clinically relevant, but time-limited, model for the effects of musculoskeletal pain on demand.

A Family-Based Alcohol Preventive Intervention for Latino Emerging Adults
Binge Alcohol ConsumptionRisk Behavior6 moreThe purpose of the proposed study was to develop a family-based drinking prevention intervention for Latino emerging adults (EAs) and Latino parents of EAs. Although drinking rates for Latinos are lower than those for Whites in terms of the prevalence of alcohol use, the consequences of alcohol use (e.g., drunk driving, unplanned/unprotected sex, alcohol-related injuries) appear to be more severe for Latinos, especially those 18-23 years old. The investigators developed a brief (4 session) intervention for each of EAs and parents focused on identity development and parent support for EAs, respectively.

Peer-led Brief Alcohol Intervention for College Student Drinkers in Spain
Peer GroupMotivational Interviewing2 moreA pilot randomized controlled trial was carried out. Fifty nursing students were randomly assigned either a 50-minute brief motivational intervention with individual feedback or a treatment-as-usual control condition. The intervention was delivered by undergraduate peer counsellors trained in Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention for College Students. Primary outcomes for testing efficacy were alcohol use and alcohol-related consequences.

Text Messaging as a Novel Alcohol Intervention for Community College Students
Alcohol UseThis project will develop an intervention delivered through text messaging to reduce alcohol consumption and high risk drinking among adults who are enrolled as students in community colleges.

Evaluating a Brief Negotiational Intervention for Alcohol Use Among Injury Patients in Tanzania...
Alcohol UseA brief negotiational interview (BNI), administered in an Emergency Department setting for both hazardous and harmful drinkers has been shown to cost-effectively reduce a patient's alcohol intake and re-injury rate up to 3 years post intervention. A BNI is a short (5-30 minute) counseling session administered by non-addiction specialists based on the concepts of the FRAMES model of motivational interviewing. Text based boosters have been proposed to prolong the impact of this intervention, either with a standardized or personalized content. The investigators will conduct a pilot study to test the feasibility of the study protocols, acceptance of the intervention, and patient enrollment and retention rates, as we prepare for a fully powered pragmatic randomized adaptive controlled trial of the intervention for patients seen at the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center (KCMC) Emergency Department.(ED)

Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention for Alcohol Use Disorders in Remission
Alcohol Use DisordersWe propose to conduct a pilot study that will examine the utility and mechanisms of Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention in reducing alcohol consumption, relapse rates, and physiological arousal to stress in adults 21 years of age and older who have met DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria for alcohol dependence within the past year but have abstained from drinking for the last thirty days. MBRP is designed to improve one's ability to self-regulate emotions, thoughts and physical states, thus reducing the need to alleviate associated discomfort through substance use. Participants assigned to the intervention group will receive an 8-week training course of MBRP over a period of nine weeks; participants assigned to the Treatment As Usual (TAU) group will continue treatment as usual, which includes utilizing their own effective strategies to refrain from alcohol use. All participants will be assessed for pretreatment severity of psychological abuse/trauma as well as pre and posttreatment psychosocial functioning (e.g., alcohol consumption, symptoms of depression and anxiety, emotion regulation/coping). The outcome of treatment will be evaluated using a) Timeline Followback drinking data and b) self-report ratings of acquisition of MBRP skills (e.g., state/trait mindfulness, acceptance and awareness, and perceived stress) and depressive and anxiety symptom severity. We hypothesize that participants who receive MBRP training will demonstrate greater acceptance and awareness, reduced cravings, and have a lower likelihood of relapse than participants in the TAU group. It is also expected that MBRP participants will demonstrate greater improvements on psychological measures of depression, anxiety, emotion regulation and coping, and show less perceived stress and physiological arousal to stress compared to TAU participants. Finally, little is known about which types of individuals are most likely to benefit from MBRP. Thus, secondary analyses will help to clarify for whom MBRP may be most effective.