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. Public Health Significance Statement Brief alcohol interventions offer a promising approach for reducing alcohol consumption and related harms among young adults. This editorial introduces the special issue focused on strengthening effects, disentangling mechanisms, and scaling up these interventions for broader public health impacts.