Brief alcohol interventions for young adults: Strengthening effects, disentangling mechanisms, and scaling up for impact.

OBJECTIVE: Young adulthood is a developmentally risky period for hazardous or high-intensity alcohol consumption that can progress to an alcohol use disorder (AUD). Brief interventions offer one promising approach for reducing alcohol consumption and related harms among young adults. However, there are numerous methodological and theoretical challenges associated with optimizing intervention design, identifying mechanisms of action, understanding individual and contextual moderators of effects, and scaling up these interventions for widespread implementation and utilization. The current article serves as an editorial introduction to this special issue of Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, titled "Brief Alcohol Interventions for Young Adults," which aims to highlight critical inflection points and opportunities for advancing the scientific study of brief alcohol interventions among young adults. RESULTS: The articles in this special issue address innovative methods and approaches that can be used to personalize and strengthen the magnitude and durability of brief intervention effects; considerations of intervention components and technology enhancements; and implementation science considerations for producing population-level changes in alcohol use to reduce AUD among young adults. CONCLUSIONS: In this editorial introduction, we discuss several common themes from the articles included in the special issue and highlight important directions for future research aimed at strengthening the effects, disentangling mechanisms, and scaling up brief alcohol interventions for broader impact on the young adult population. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Transdisciplinary translational behavioral (TDTB) research: opportunities, barriers, and innovations.

The translation of basic behavioral science discoveries into practical strategies represents a promising approach to developing more effective preventive interventions to improve health. Since translational research inevitably involves making use of diverse perspectives from multiple disciplines, it is best conducted as a transdisciplinary enterprise. In this paper, we discuss current strategies used by NIH to support transdisciplinary translational behavioral (TDTB) research, summarize successful efforts, and highlight challenges encountered in conducting such work (ranging from conceptual to organizational to methodological). Using examples from NIH-funded projects we illustrate the potential benefits of, and barriers to, pursuing this type of research and discuss next steps and potential future directions for NIH-supported TDTB research.

Introduction to special section: ADHD, impulsivity, and alcohol abuse.

The goal of this special section is to highlight progress made and primary research reports on the relation between Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), impulsivity, and alcohol use disorders (AUDs) utilizing a diverse range of methods. The four papers examine various psychological processes underlying the broad construct of impulsivity that are related largely to impairments in inhibitory control. The section addresses the influences of reward sensitivity, working memory/attention control, and social functioning in the development and persistence of AUDs among individuals with ADHD. These papers are important because they approach the relation between ADHD and AUDs, and the role of impulsivity, from varied perspectives.