Brief Online Intervention to Reduce Heavy Alcohol Use Among Young Adult Veterans

This study was conducted in two phases with the main goal of developing and testing a very brief online program to reduce heavy alcohol use among young adult veterans in the United States.

In the first phase, we examined how the social media website Facebook could be used to reach veterans in the community for the intervention effort. Although veterans are an at-risk group for heavy drinking and mental health problems, few seek care. Thus, we were able to document that targeted Facebook advertisements can be used to reach out to veterans and provide them with an alcohol reduction program that they likely would not have received otherwise.

In the second phase, we used the data we collected from participants in the first phase to develop a personalized normative feedback intervention. This intervention was very brief and online, and showed young veterans information to correct their misperceptions about the drinking behavior of their peers. For example, in the intervention, young veterans would be asked how much they believe other veterans like themselves drink alcohol. Then, they would view information about veterans like themselves that showed them that other veterans do not drink as much as they think they do. This is important because much research has documented that perceptions about how much others drink is a major factor contributing to how much one drinks themselves. Thus, correcting these misperceptions has been a primary strategy for reducing drinking among young people. These norms correction strategies have mostly been tested with college students or other non-veteran young adult groups, and when they have been tested with veterans they have been tested within much lengthier, multicomponent interventions. Our study was the first to test the norms correction strategy alone with young veterans using an online design meant to reach veterans in the community through recruitment on Facebook.