Using digital solutions for Brief Interventions in Alcohol, Tobacco, other drugs use and gambling

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Background

Alcohol use is the leading cause of death and other adverse health outcomes in people aged 15-49 years old. Drug use and tobacco consumption are among the largest risk factors for premature deaths worldwide. Gambling disorders prevalence worldwide is about 0.5%. Brief interventions have been proved to be cost-effective for managing risky alcohol or other drugs use. Nevertheless, the implementation of brief interventions is still scarce in clinical practice. Given the increasing coverage of smartphones, wereables and other connected devices worldwide, digital health solutions have potential for scaling up the delivery of brief interventions and overcoming the main barriers for its implementation (e.g., risk of upsetting the patient, privacy and confidentiality concerns, access to rural areas and vulnerable populations).

The goal of this Research Topic is to advance the development and implementation of digital solutions for facilitating the implementation and results of brief interventions in the area of alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, prescribed drugs or illicit drugs use and gambling. In this research topic, "digital solutions" refers to electronic and communication technologies to support, complement or substitute traditional brief interventions (either alone online intervention or blended intervention). The research topic will give priority but it is not limited to the evaluation of implementation modalities (from randomized controlled trials to meta-analyses), diversification and cultural adaptations, accommodation of innovative and breaking technologies, and quality and safety assessment.

In particular, this collection will focus on the following digital health brief interventions:

1. Evaluation of Effective Implementation Modalities (Meta-analyses, cost-effectiveness analyses, randomized-controlled trials, key ingredients of digital interventions, blended interventions and complementary between face-to-face and digital interventions, vulnerable populations, etc.)

2. Diversification and Cultural Sensitivity (culturally generalizable, specific cultures and minorities, facilitate the use of non-native users (elderly)

3. Accommodation of New Technology (just in time adaptive interventions, gamification and serious games, chatbots, geotagging, big data)

4. Intervention Quality and Safety Management (quality criteria, taxonomy and standardization, best practices

Keywords: Alcohol, Tobacco, Drug, Brief intervention, Digital health, Gambling

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