The majority of existing knowledge on patterns of alcohol consumption is based on retrospective-recall methodologies. These are cost-efficient and convenient but are limited in their capacity to record data on the circumstances of alcohol consumption as they emerge in time and space. By contrast, the features of personal smartphones offer exciting possibilities for revealing these circumstances and tracking consumption.
In this presentation, I draw on a range of our recent and ongoing ecological momentary assessment studies that focus on how aspects of the social and physical environment unfold, which has led to a more comprehensive understanding of interactions between the magnitude of factors shaping alcohol consumption in real time and real life. For example, I show how alcohol consumption progresses from one hour to the next on weekend evenings among young adults in Switzerland, how evenings with excessive drinking patterns can be identified and how personal drinking motives, pre-drinking, time spent in bars and the number of friends present all shape the amounts consumed during drinking events. I also discuss implications of user perception independent (‘objective’) data collection, e.g. using smartphone sensors and transdermal alcohol monitors.
Speaker Bio:
Professor Emmanuel Kuntsche has been trained in Psychology (University of Jena, Germany), Sociology (University of Jena, Germany), Public Health (University of Maastricht, the Netherlands) and Statistics (University of Essex, UK). He is currently investigating the development and transformation of alcohol-related cognition from early childhood into adolescence and the role of parental alcohol socialisation. His research interests also include the measurement of both alcohol consumption (e.g. using ecological momentary assessment, smartphone apps and transdermal monitors) and related cognition (e.g. by means of the Alcohol Expectancy Task he developed). Emmanuel has published more than 300 scientific articles, book chapters, and research reports (more than 100 in the last five years) and has contributed to more than 220 scientific meetings (75 times as invited/keynote speaker). He has received career awards and personal funding from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, the German Society for Addiction Research and Addiction Treatment, the Swiss National Science Foundation, and International Kettil Bruun Society for Social and Epidemiological Research on Alcohol. He has had editorial appointments at seven international journals (currently Addiction, Drug and Alcohol Review, the Journal of Behavioural Addictions and European Addiction Research).