In light of the documented increases in both alcohol misuse (among some individuals) and domestic violence (DV) as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic and array of mandated restrictions enacted to mitigate COVID spread, the purpose of this grant application solicitation is to announce NIAAA’s interest in addressing the critical need for research related to developing, testing, and intervening proximal to drinking occasions, when risk of DV is elevated, to decrease the likelihood of alcohol consumption at levels sufficient to trigger DV and to provide skills shown to reduce risk of DV perpetration and victimization. In particular, this solicitation seeks to advance the development, feasibility, acceptability, pilot testing, potential efficacy, and implementation of scalable, low resource, and remotely delivered interventions via mobile devices (mHealth) that rely on communication technologies for reducing and preventing alcohol consumption and DV. For this FOA, the term “domestic violence” will extend to child maltreatment (abuse and neglect) and elder abuse, in addition to intimate partner violence (IPV).
NIAAA encourages the submission of applications that include, but are not limited to, the following areas:
- basic behavioral and etiological research, including experimental research, that informs and test theoretical models of the association between individual and contextual factors, drinking patterns, and IPV/DV perpetration daily and over time
- studies that advance ecological momentary assessment (EMA) research methodology that assesses individuals in their own environment in near real-time, providing insights in understanding in-the-moment processes. Establishing the feasibility of EMA techniques to capture proximal moderators of the alcohol-IPV relationship (e.g., negative affect, emotion dysregulation) figures to enhance understanding of IPV/DV episodes and provide crucial information for the development of preventive interventions. The contextual and situational factors surrounding DV/IPV episodes (e.g., where and with whom one is drinking; motives for use; feelings of craving, stress) can be probed using EMA methods and illuminated by continuously collected data from mobile phone sensors indicating date, time and movement (suggestive of change in activities; etc) that may signal initiation of alcohol use.
- studies to assess the feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy of Just-In-Time interventions for alcohol-related IPV/DV that can be deployed before or during the drinking episode with the aim of reducing the amount consumed and/or preventing adverse consequences.
- research that advances dissemination and implementation of preventive interventions for alcohol-related DV. Such research can provide an important next step in moving promising preventive interventions out into the field. Current interventions for IPV tend to be resource intensive. The NIAAA encourages the development of scalable, sustainable interventions that can be readily integrated into community practice; delivered using existing service platforms, personnel, and resources; and that incorporate features that ease implementation fidelity. For instance, an effective online platform eventually might be incorporated into primary care or women’s wellness clinics, urgent care facilities,communityorschool-based health clinics, mobile clinics,HIV clinics,VA facilities,andsubstance use treatmentproviders to provide access to information, motivation building, and skills training to reduce risk for violence victimization.
- studies that advance basic behavioral and intervention development research with populations that may be at elevated risk for alcohol-related IPV/DV but which remain relatively understudied (e.g., sexual/gender minority students; community college students; racial and ethnic minority, rural and military populations).