Component Director: Sharon Lipperman-Kreda, Ph.D.
Opportunities and constraints to drink in different contexts change when young people can access alcohol legally, but also change momentarily across nighttime hours. We will investigate how contextual risks (e.g., drinking locations, number of people, other’s drinking) across weekend evening hours change when young people attain the legal drinking age and how they contribute to heavier drinking and alcohol-related problems.
This study will also examine how these processes differ before and after legal drinking age, since we know that reaching legal age will increase opportunities to drink in on-premises establishments and at events where alcohol is sold.
Research Plan
We will conduct a two-wave Ecological Momentary Assessments (EMA) study with a sample of young adult current drinkers in California before they are of legal drinking age (19-20 years old) and two years later, after they attain legal drinking age (21-22 years). A baseline and three 6-month follow-up surveys between EMA waves will be used to assess and track changes in personal covariates (e.g., prior drinking, college attendance) and maintain a high response rate. EMA is well suited to examining changes in contexts, opportunities, constraints, drinking behaviors, and risks as they unfold in natural settings over evening hours because it minimizes recall bias, maximizes ecological validity, and allows assessment of micro-ecological processes that influence behaviors and risks in near real time.
Our sample will include college and non-college young adult drinkers in different life circumstances (e.g., living on their own or with parents) to capture the full range of drinking contexts and opportunities of young adults as they move to legal drinking age. Results will inform context-based nighttime preventive interventions by specifying when, where, and to whom prevention options should be provided.
