RDAR Center applied for its second NIAAA Grant: Modeling the Process of AUD Recovery and Relapse
RDAR Center Member Dr. Bilal Khan and Dr. Dennis McChargue applied to the National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA) for $2.2 million in funding to undertake a regional-level study of 200 adults in transitional living facilities. This study would collect longitudinal behavioral and experiential data from each participant over four months after treatment admission to assess the co-evolution of craving, affect, stressors, and access to alcohol in long-term recovery and relapse trajectories. The goal of this research program is to assess and quantify the impact of environmental and contextual factors for recovering alcoholics using responsive ecological momentary assessment (rEMA) software. This software enables real-time monitoring of recovery patients in post-treatment settings via smartphone technology, allowing researchers to incorporate geospatial, time-specific and event-specific criteria for enhanced data collection.
The proposal aims to quantify the short-timescale co-evolution of craving, affect, stressors, and access to alcohol at the individual-level; identify drivers of recovery/relapse, at the population level; and create individualized models that make effective real-time predictions about risk of immediate relapse, risk of dropout from alcohol use recovery programs, and post-program outcomes. Data derived from this project will allow for the creation of individualized models that make a range of real-time predictions, including forecasting imminent spikes in craving and access to alcohol. These models will allow for a nuanced quantitative descriptions of the relapse and recovery patterns of those with an alcohol use disorder, and open the door to the future design of tailored interventions that can be delivered “just-in-time” to reinforce continued recovery or disrupt impending relapse.
Sunday, June 30, 2019 by Elizabeth Dombrowski