# CBT by Phone to Promote Use of Alcohol Related Care and Reduce Drinking

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER · 2021 · $149,552

## Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has major implications for alcohol use and treatment utilization for alcohol use
disorder (AUD), and there are pronounced racial disparities in COVID-19 experiences including higher rates of
COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations, and deaths in Blacks, serving as the foci of this COVID-19 supplement.
More specifically, this supplement covers the final 2 years of a 4-year randomized controlled trial (RCT) to
examine the efficacy of a one-session phone intervention, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Treatment Seeking
(CBT-TS), to increase AUD treatment utilization and reduce drinking. Subjects are adult volunteers with AUD
recruited from the Rochester, New York area through social media who have no prior history of AUD treatment.
Following a baseline assessment, subjects are randomized to CBT-TS or a control condition (being read an
information pamphlet on AUD treatment) and followed for 6 months. One year into recruitment for the RCT, in
March 2020, a statewide executive order was issued in response to the COVID-19 pandemic that swept into
New York City, with sudden and dramatic effects throughout the state. A month later, the study team began to
administer a detailed assessment of COVID-19 experiences to assess subjects' personal exposure to COVID-
19, exposure of family members, stress related to COVID-19, and alcohol use affected by COVID-19. Through
this supplement, these data at the population level (marked by the executive order) and at the individual level
(obtained through the COVID-19 assessment) are used to analyze COVID-19 related experiences and their
prospective associations with AUD treatment utilization, drinking outcomes, and response to the study
intervention (Specific Aim 1) and to explore racial disparities through comparisons of Blacks and white non-
Hispanics (Specific Aim 2). Moreover, pilot research suggests that Blacks may be especially responsive to the
CBT-TS intervention, underscoring the importance of further study of the intervention in this population. To
achieve the two study aims, the supplement provides resources to increase the length of follow-up (from 6
months to 12 months) which is needed to model effects of COVID-19 experiences over time, and to increase
the sample size (from n=450 to n=500), with a priority on increased recruitment of Blacks (to reach n=100) to
facilitate sub-analyses and comparisons with white non-Hispanics. This supplement is in response to NOT-OD-
20-097 and addresses the emphases in the NOSI on “downstream health impacts resulting from (COVID-19
related) social, behavioral, and economic impacts, including (race) differences in risk and resiliency.”
Moreover, it is responsive to its call for “active grants studying existing longitudinal cohorts, particularly those
cohorts with considerable data relevant to COVID-19 social and behavioral factors prior and subsequent to the
(COVID-19) outbreak.” Along these lines, the statewide executive order was issued at the midpoint o...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10244416
- **Project number:** 3R01AA026815-03S2
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER
- **Principal Investigator:** KENNETH R CONNER
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $149,552
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2018-09-01 → 2022-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10244416

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10244416, CBT by Phone to Promote Use of Alcohol Related Care and Reduce Drinking (3R01AA026815-03S2). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10244416. Licensed CC0.

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