The objective of this research project is to evaluate whether changes in cognitive factors can reduce hazardous drinking among current and graduating college students. These studies seek to evaluate naturalistic (Study 1) and experimentally-induced (Study 2) changes. The naturalistic study is currently following a sample of recent college graduates, with assessments every 4 months, beginning just prior to graduation through the 2-year period after graduation. The experimental study will manipulate the cognitive factors (via narrative writing tasks) to increase self-efficacy, decrease alcohol craving, and ultimately, reduce hazardous drinking.
Targeted Condition: Substance use disorders/misuse
Project AMPS
The goal of this project is to develop and test a 3-week mobile-app that tracks mood, alcohol use, alcohol expectancies, and alcohol-related consequences 2x a day and provides real-time personalized feedback using individuals’ daily experiences and intentions. The app is designed for students attending 2-year/community colleges and 4-year colleges. This work is significant because there is currently very little attention paid specifically for 2-year/community college students and this app provides real-time information on a platform that nearly 100% of young adults have and are accessing hourly.
Project SAM Transitions
This study is conducting secondary analyses on data collected from an unprecedented, recent longitudinal study of young adult drinkers recruited from the community in WA State after adult marijuana use was legalized for recreational purposes, Project Transitions. Analyses will increase our knowledge of concurrent and simultaneous use of alcohol and marijuana across months, specifically examining substitution or complementary effects across substances and short-term potential consequences, and how reaching the legal age for marijuana influences trajectories of use. The project will provide answers to novel research questions that are of critical public health importance and have implications for young adult prevention and intervention strategies.
Project STEP
This project is designed to integrate basic and clinical science to translate mechanisms of recovery from PTSD to testing an intervention in individuals with PTSD and marijuana use. We will recruit 72 individuals with PTSD and varying levels of marijuana use, 36 with current heavy marijuana use and 36 without current marijuana use, to complete a conditional discrimination and extinction task in order to understand the relationship between marijuana and fear learning in individuals with pathological fear. Following this task, participants will receive a brief 6 session imaginal exposure protocol (IE) to explore whether this adapted short form treatment shows increased feasibility (efficacy, reduced drop out) for individuals with co-occurring PTSD and marijuana use. We will also be able to test the link between basic fear and recovery processes by looking at the extinction task as a predictor of treatment response for individuals with and without marijuana use. This research is significant in its potential to identify a predictor of treatment response, to test an underlying mechanism of recovery for PTSD in individuals with PTSD and co-occurring marijuana use, and to test feasibility of a novel intervention for a difficult to treat population.
MC2: Motivating Campus Change
The application was built on our prior intervention trials to further explore conditions under which normative feedback may reduce college drinking. Specifically, we proposed to contrast efficacy of personalized normative feedback (PNF) regarding specific reference groups (i.e., gender-, ethnicity-, and residence-specific feedback) versus a generic (typical college student) reference group, evaluate identification with the normative reference group in moderating efficacy of PNF regarding descriptive drinking norms, and evaluate unique and combined influences of PNF regarding descriptive and injunctive norms on drinking behavior.
Collaborating to Heal Addiction and Mental Health in Primary Care (CHAMP)
The gold-standard intervention for Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) is Medication for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD). Because more patients with OUD need access to MOUD in primary care, the AIMS Center at the University of Washington is testing a Collaborative Care model to treat mental health disorders and OUD concurrently in primary care settings. The CHAMP study addresses three important objectives including: 1) Can OUD screening be effectively incorporated into primary care mental health screening protocols?; 2) Does implementing Collaborative Care for OUD and mental health disorders improve outcomes?; 3) What implementation strategies are effective at sustaining Collaborative Care programs that concurrently manage mental health disorders and OUD? In this pragmatic trial, 24 primary care clinics will be randomized to either adding OUD to their Collaborative Care program or maintaining Collaborative Care for mental health disorders only.
