REDUCING COLLEGE STUDENT BINGE EATING AND DRINKING BEHAVIOR THROUGH BRIEF ONLINE INTERVENTION
NIAAA R34 AA030655 (PIs Pedersen and Murray)
Heavy drinking among college students continues to be a national public health concern and remains an important target for prevention and intervention efforts. Eating disorders (EDs) also typically emerge in late adolescence and early young adulthood and commonly co-occur with binge drinking, with college students being particularly at-risk. Two of the most common EDs among college students are binge eating disorder (BED) and bulimia nervosa (BN), which are characterized by a rapid consumption of large quantities of food (binge eating behaviors). Both are highly co-occurring with binge drinking, and students with EDs are likely to experience elevated levels of alcohol-related consequences.
Binge eating behaviors share underlying commonalities with heavy drinking; thus, we propose to target both binge drinking and binge eating behavior in college students through a mobile-based online program that provides students with evidence-based intervention material designed to reduce the incidence of both behaviors as well as encourage students to seek more formal in-person counseling. Specifically, we aim to:
- Develop the mobile intervention and beta-test screening, recruitment, and intervention procedures (N = 20).
- Pilot test the randomly assigned, refined intervention material (N = 150) and determine its efficacy in reducing (1) binge drinking and alcohol-related consequences and (2) binge eating behaviors and related problems one-month and three-months post-intervention when compared to a resources-only condition (N = 150).
- Gain a better understanding of the potential effects of the intervention by exploring whether the effects of the intervention.
- On drinking outcomes are partially explained by reductions in binge eating behavior
- On binge eating outcomes are partially explained by reductions in drinking behavior
- Differ across meaningful subpopulations based on sex (male vs. female), baseline drinking severity, baseline binge eating severity, and underlying correlates of both behaviors (emotion regulation, impulsivity, and negative affect [depression, anxiety]).