NHMRC Early Career Fellowship (Australian Clinical): Lab to classroom: Validation of an innovative lab model of adolescent impulsivity and alcohol use using a school-based randomised controlled trial (2012–2016)
Abstract:
Adolescent alcohol use is a serious public health issue in Australia. While universal prevention programmes have produced mixed outcomes, recent attempts to develop targeted intervention programmes have shown some promise. However, innovation in this field is hindered by a lack of understanding of precisely how such interventions work, despite much speculation. This is the result of a poor integration with basic psychological science. To remedy this, the proposed research aims to develop and validate a new laboratory model of adolescent impulsivity and alcohol use that can be used to test the efficacy of "active" psychosocial treatment components, pilot novel techniques, and thereby guide innovation. Specifically, it aims to evaluate the additive benefits of a promising new psychosocial technique, mindfulness meditation (MM), to current cognitive techniques effective in reducing adolescent alcohol use. The additive benefits of MM will first be evaluated in the laboratory using the new model before being piloted in a school-based, randomised controlled trial (RCT). Findings from the new laboratory model are expected to predict actual treatment outcomes observed in the field. This innovative research will be the first attempt to develop a human laboratory model of adolescent impulsivity and alcohol use that will allow new psychosocial treatments to be tested in a more cost-effective manner while simultaneously elucidating their mechanism of action.
