She will continue to follow all the students for 2 years. It would be reasonable to expect the impulsivity and anxiety-sensitivity youth to begin to manifest risk at future follow-up periods, but remains unclear whether the interventions will produce an effect on drinking behavior so far down the road, she said.
“One promising finding is that [a 2006 study] showed the impulsivity and anxiety-sensitivity interventions reduced antisocial behavior and panic anxiety, and each of these symptoms appears to be linked to future drinking behavior,” she said. “Therefore, it is possible that by reducing these groups' primary susceptibility to specific behavioral and emotional problems, the personality-targeted interventions will indirectly prevent alcohol problems in the future.”
The study should be interpreted in the light of findings that rates of adult alcohol dependence can be reduced by 10% for each year that drinking is delayed in adolescence, she said. “An intervention that can stem the natural growth of drinking in early-onset drinkers may prove to be a method of reversing the risk associated with early-onset use, possibly by delaying the onset of heavy drinking until after a crucial period of neurodevelopment when executive functions and reward responding mature.”
The program is extremely cost effective, she added, with a price tag of about $120 to prevent one case of binge drinking over 1 year.