Online interventions to reduce alcohol consumption

About the project

An important first step to establish a long-term partnership between the Department of Psychology and CATCH at the University of Sheffield and HAGA – an alcohol action charity.

The Department of Psychology has expertise in the models of, and theory-based interventions to change, health-risk behaviour and CATCH has expertise in assistive technologies, including e-health, m-health interventions, and their evaluation in complex behavioural interventions. HAGA has expertise in the provision of online screening and brief alcohol advice services (as well as wider alcohol treatment interventions) for local authorities.

The project has considerable potential for enhancing the delivery and effectiveness of the brief alcohol interventions provided by HAGA and ensuring the translation and impact of research conducted by the University of Sheffield.

The proposed project includes:

• Visits to HAGA to increase familiarity with their current online screening and brief alcohol advice.

• Seminars to present current work conducted by TUoS on the determinants of, and interventions to change, alcohol use.

• Conducting a literature review on brief online alcohol interventions to inform research ideas and enhancements to HAGA's online brief advice.

• Exploring the potential for, and barriers to, future research projects to test enhancements to the online advice.

• Identifying potential funding sources for future research collaborations between the University of Sheffield and HAGA.

"As a medium-sized charity focused on delivering services for people affected by alcohol misuse, we rarely have capacity to focus on proving the efficacy of what we do. Our collaboration with CATCH will valuably bring expert researchers into our team to support us in building the evidence base for our online interventions and, we hope, move on to inform and develop our work beyond that."

– Head of Development and Early Intervention at HAGA