A Mobile-Delivered Personalized Feedback Intervention for Black Individuals who Engage in Hazardous Drinking

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Black persons are the second largest racial minority group in the United States (US) and experience striking health disparities, particularly in terms of hazardous drinking and co-occurring elevated anxiety. The co- occurrence of these risk factors contributes to worse physical/mental health outcomes among Black individuals. Few interventions to date have targeted hazardous drinking in the context of high anxiety among Black persons. The current Phase I STTR project directly aligns with the published NIAAA SBIR/STTR Research Interests, including developing “Mobile device applications … to improve the effectiveness, accessibility, and use of behavioral interventions for AUD and co-occurring disorders” and “Solutions for minority health and health disparities with capabilities of reaching persons in rural, remote, and under- resourced/under-served communities.” The current proposal has the end goal of improving strategies to prevent alcohol misuse, alcohol use disorder, and alcohol-related consequences among an ‘at-risk’ population for these conditions. In addition, it enhances the public health impact of NIAAA-supported research by focusing on the second largest racial minority group in the US who demonstrate disparities in hazardous drinking. We aim to remove barriers of treatment access and cost and increase treatment appeal by offering a digital therapeutic product in the form of a smartphone-delivered, personalized, brief intervention, designed to address hazardous drinking and associated elevated anxiety. We will utilize and iterative approach using expert input and focus groups (N = 15) of Black individuals who engage in hazardous drinking with elevated anxiety to inform the design and functionality of the prototype. We will then assess program navigation and conduct usability testing of the mobile app among Black individuals who engage in hazardous drinking with elevated anxiety (N = 5) and prepare the final prototype. With the final prototype we will evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, and effects of the mobile app among Black individuals who engage in hazardous drinking with elevated anxiety symptoms (N = 50). The low-cost app will address infrastructure barriers that prevent delivery of such interventions. This study represents an important and pivotal step in the larger landscape of translating basic research to more efficacious strategies for reducing hazardous drinking in underserved populations with biobehavioral comorbidities. We anticipate robust evidence for the feasibility, acceptability, and clinical utility of the mobile app that will support proceeding to Phase II development and evaluation. The project fills a crucial niche, is based on a theoretically rich and empirically derived intervention, and is practical enough to lend itself to mobile delivery throughout the Black community. We strongly believe this intervention will offer a promising and profitable approach to address alcohol/anxiety-related disparities among an underserved population.