Understanding attempts made to reduce alcohol harm

This project aims to help people who are drinking more than the recommended amount to reduce their harm from alcohol by supporting attempts to reduce their harm from alcohol. 

Team: Claire Garnett, Hazel Morfett, Olivia Maynard, Angela Attwood, Marcus Munafo, Jamie Brown (collaborator)

Overview: The project will use a mixed-methods approach and comprise of four work packages which each address a key objective. 

Work package 1: Qualitative focus groups and interviews to understand experiences of alcohol reduction attempts 

Objective: develop a list of co-produced alcohol reduction strategies and desired goals with public input and to understand what might persuade those who have not made an alcohol reduction attempt to do so. 

Work package 2: Acceptability of alcohol reduction strategies to drinkers who have not made a reduction attempt 

Objective: to understand which strategies and goals are most acceptable to drinkers who have not previously made an alcohol reduction attempt using an experimental online trial. 

Work package 3: Causal inference methods to evaluate alcohol reduction strategies 

Objective: to estimate the total causal effect of alcohol reduction strategies on the success of alcohol reduction attempts using population-level data from a representative sample of adults in England. 

Work package 4: Interventions to increase the proportion and success of attempts being made  

Objective: to develop and evaluate two synergistic interventions, a population-level mass media campaign and refining an individual-level digital intervention, to increase the proportion of alcohol reduction attempts made and the success of these attempts in the UK. 

Outputs: This project started in September 2023 and will run for 5 years. Project outputs will be linked here in due course. 

Funding: This project is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). Project award details: https://fundingawards.nihr.ac.uk/award/NIHR302923