Current Projects
Adolescent Alcohol Use: Elementary, Middle and High School
Our program of research is geared toward understanding youth decisions to drink alcohol from late childhood through late adolescence.
Past research in our lab and others have shown that many factors influence youth decisions to initiate and escalate drinking. Our work has focused on personality, learning and social influences on these behaviors.
We collaborate with prevention and intervention specialists to create developmentally-appropriate strategies to prevent escalation in alcohol and drug use.
Adolescent Substance Use Treatment: Outcomes and Relapse Prevention (NIDA funded)
We are in the process of developing and testing a novel, video-based method to understand the mechanisms underlying youth decision-making in alcohol and drug use situations.
Adolescent Substance Involvement Digital Elicitation (A-SIDE)
- Filmed scenarios of common social situations associated with adolescent relapse to alcohol and other drug use after treatment.
- Open-ended and structured interview format to assess the environmental, social and learning factors associated with substance use for youth.
Goals for A-SIDE
- Develop a reliable and valid instrument of adolescent relapse risk after treatment.
- Test a model of social-information processing for youth substance use decision-making
College Student Decisions About Drinking (ABMRF funded)
As an adjunct to our work on the A-SIDE, we are developing an audio-based method for understanding college student decisions to drink in social situations involving alcohol, particularly heavy episodic drinking.