Risk for Alcohol Impaired Driving: From the Laboratory to the Natural Environment

Despite previous success in reducing alcohol impaired driving (AID) and fatal crashes, rates have not decreased significantly since the 1990s. Developing novel approaches to prevention/intervention are likely required to produce further progress.

This project is designed to evaluate a potential intervention for AID using mobile technology. In addition, the project is designed to provide pilot data for a large scale investigation.

Recent laboratory work by the PI has demonstrated the utility of assessing AID risk factors when participants are intoxicated. We identified four risk factors that, measured under intoxication, are cross-sectional predictors of AID: AID attitudes (Morris et al., 2014), impulsivity (McCarthy et al., 2012), behavioral economic demand (Amlung et al., 2016) and subjective intoxication (Amlung et al., 2014).

The proposed project will evaluate these factors as prospective predictors of AID and extend this work outside the laboratory and into participants' natural drinking environment using Ambulatory Assessment (AA). AA is a set of techniques used to collect data from individuals in the course of their daily life. AA methods provide increased ecological validity across multiple modalities (e.g., self-report, physiological measures). No study to date has used AA to examine AID. We will employ a combination of three AA methods: ecological momentary assessment, geospatial technology, and portable breath analysis.

Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) is a form of AA that allows participants to self-report on their current thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in their natural environment (Shiffman et al., 2008). EMA avoids most pitfalls of retrospective reports, and is increasingly used to study temporally proximal influences on substance use behaviors (Shiffman, 2009). Despite the importance of such influences to AID decisions (Quinn & Fromme, 2012), no study to date has applied EMA methods to the study of AID.