Using the Solid Research Base on Pregaming to Begin Intervention Development: An Epilogue to the Special Issue on Pregaming

ABSTRACT

The pregaming research to date, up to and including the innovative studies included in this special issue, has centered on defining the behavior, learning which students may be most at-risk for pregaming, exploring which contexts may be most risky for pregaming, and quantifying the function of pregaming so that individual-level programs can be developed to target the risky practice. Although there is room for continuing to expand and refine our understanding of pregaming, much of the formative work has been conducted—primarily by the researchers highlighted in this special issue. Now it is time to use the understanding we have of this risky behavior to develop and empirically test programs specifically directed toward reducing or eliminating the behavior, not just at the individual level, but by targeting the social, cultural, economic, environmental, and policy level factors that sustain the behavior in the population. This may include targeting the behavior directly through use of techniques that are shown to be effective for young adult behavior change, but this may also require broadening beyond the psychological literature and utilizing expertise from other domains to affect behavior change.

Keywords:

• Pregaming
• prepartying
• alcohol
• heavy drinking
• college students
• intervention

Acknowledgment

The author would like to thank Justin Hummer for comments on an initial review of this manuscript.

Declaration of interest

The author reports no conflicts of interest. The author alone is responsible for the content and writing of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eric R. Pedersen

Eric R. Pedersen, Ph.D., is a behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation. His research interests are primarily in areas of young adult/adolescent alcohol use and comorbid mental health disorders. Pedersen has received funding to develop brief, online interventions to reduce alcohol misuse among young adult populations such as college students and recent veterans. He is interested in finding ways to target comorbid Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and substance use disorders among active duty and young adult veterans, as well as in reducing alcohol misuse and promoting treatment engagement among non-treatment-seeking young adults using Internet-based methods.