Using e-health and m-health technologies to promote responsible drinking among employed adults

Wellness initiatives often address lifestyle behaviors while excluding responsible drinking. Yet solid research demonstrates an array of harmful and costly consequences of risky drinking. Due to significant costs incurred by employers and insurers, there is demand for evidence-based harm reduction programs for non-alcohol dependent employed adults.

This presentation highlights an innovative, mobile-optimized program for adults who exceed the low-risk drinking guidelines. Theoretically based individually tailored and stage-matched behavior change guidance is delivered via a web interface and includes text messaging to mobile phones. Empirically-based decision rules direct personalized messages based on relevant Transtheoretical Model processes and strategies of change. This represents the most sophisticated level of theoretically tailoring within text messaging to date.

In addition to sharing the design and conceptualization of program components, findings from a pilot test with 166 employed adults across four states and six employers will be presented (90.4% White, 68.7% female, average age=38. 8). The accessibility of the program was one of its most valuable characteristics with a majority of participants ‘strongly agreeing' or ‘agreeing' that the program was easy to use (97.8%), and that the questions (92.5%) and feedback (95.6%) were easy to understand. Most importantly, 94.3% indicated that they would recommend the program to others. After completing the intervention, participants reported an intention to drink 2.9 fewer drinks each week on average and to reduce the number of times they exceeded the daily limit in the next month. Discussion will highlight engagement strategies.