# Preventing Alcohol Exposed Pregnancy among Urban Native Young Women: Mobile CHOICES

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO DENVER · 2021 · $574,100

## Abstract

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) result in neurodevelopmental deficits and lifelong disability; they are
a leading cause of preventable birth defects in the U.S. According to the CDC, any sexually active woman of
reproductive age who drinks alcohol and does not use effective contraception is at risk for an alcohol exposed
pregnancy (AEP) that could cause FASD. By this definition, American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) young
women are especially vulnerable to AEP, with high levels of alcohol consumption and sexual risk taking
compared to their counterparts in other race/ethnic groups. Although an estimated 72% of AIAN young women
live in urban areas, very little research has yet included them; urban AIAN needs are often ignored in research
aimed at developing, implementing, and evaluating culturally appropriate services. Recent research indicates
that mobile health (mHealth) interventions may offer a promising mechanism for delivering effective
interventions to hard-to-reach populations. The goal of this project is to expand reach and services to urban
AIAN young women through mHealth technology to prevent AEP and FASD. The proposed project builds on a
prior NIAAA-funded project which used intensive community-based participatory research (CBPR) methods to
adapt CHOICES, an evidence-based brief AEP intervention supported by the CDC, to American Indian Youth
CHOICES (AIY-C). AIY-C contains features that make it highly amenable to mHealth approaches, including a
framework for integrating diverse cultural teachings, few modules of short duration, and concrete opportunities
for goal-setting and achievement. Innovative for this population is the plan to recruit young AIAN women from
major urban areas in the US through social media—and to deliver AIY-C via mobile devices, increasingly
ubiquitous among AIAN young adults. While social media recruitment and mHealth interventions are not new,
only very recently have they been used with AIAN populations. We will partner with urban AIAN organizations
to guide us through social media recruitment strategies, mHealth intervention translation and implementation,
and evaluation in urban AIAN settings. We propose 3 specific aims: (1) Develop and pilot social-media-based
recruitment strategies for urban AIAN young women; (2) translate AIY-C for mHealth delivery through an
iterative and theoretically driven process and pilot the developed translated mHealth AIY-C intervention; and
(3) recruit 700 (final N=525) urban AIAN young women using identified social media strategies, and conduct an
RCT to rigorously evaluate the effectiveness of the mHealth translation of AIY-C for preventing AEP and
FASD. The proposed project promises expansive reach to AIAN young women to address significant yet
preventable public health concerns – AEP and FASD; importantly, the project also promises to advance a
blueprint for preventive intervention research with urban AIAN populations largely ignored to date.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10221459
- **Project number:** 5R01AA025603-04
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO DENVER
- **Principal Investigator:** CAROL E KAUFMAN
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $574,100
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-08-01 → 2023-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10221459

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10221459, Preventing Alcohol Exposed Pregnancy among Urban Native Young Women: Mobile CHOICES (5R01AA025603-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10221459. Licensed CC0.

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