Smartphone-Delivered 12-Step Facilitation Intervention for Alcohol Use Disorder in Young Adults

This is a K01 award application for Dr. Hang Hai, a young investigator with a strong commitment to improving alcohol-related health outcomes across populations (long-term goal). This K01 award will provide mentorship and research experience to advance her intermediate goal of becoming an independent NIAAA investigator with expertise in developing scalable, contextually tailored, technology-based, spirituality-integrated alcohol interventions for young adults (YAs). This award will facilitate Dr. Hai’s achievement of the following training goals (TG): to develop critical knowledge and skills in 1) the development of mobile health alcohol interventions, 2) qualitative research methods for contextually tailoring alcohol interventions for different populations, 3) spirituality-integrated alcohol interventions, including 12-step programs, and 4) alcohol misuse among YAs. Dr. Hai has assembled a multidisciplinary mentorship team with internationally recognized experts in each training area. She will achieve her training goals through mentored training and research, directed readings, formal coursework, and training institutes/programs. To acquire hands-on research experience in all training areas, Dr. Hai proposes an innovative, mentored research study focused on developing a smartphone-app-based intervention for YAs of Hispanic heritage with alcohol use disorder (AUD). This is a large and rapidly growing population that faces a higher risk for alcohol-related consequences. Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) has the potential to help lift this public health burden, but is rarely used by YAs. 12-Step Facilitation (TSF), a research-supported, professionally delivered intervention specifically designed to promote AA engagement, is a promising tool to help leverage AA. However, literature and preliminary data show that tailoring is needed to ensure TSF is effective, easy to access, scalable, and relevant for this population. In response to this need, the proposed research aims to tailor TSF in three critical ways: 1) to increase TSF’s relevance for this population, we will add an intervention component to address the link between drinking problems and contextual factors; 2) update TSF’s original language and content to better resonate with YAs; and 3) tailor TSF into a smartphone-app-based intervention (eTSF) to maximize intervention accessibility and scalability. The proposed research aligns with NIAAA’s strategic plan Objective 4a to “Improve existing behavioral treatments for alcohol use disorder” through “use[ing] electronic health technologies including mobile devices.” This study will lay the groundwork for testing a fully powered randomized trial (R01 submission in Year 5) and expanding eTSF’s scope to include other populations in the future.