Mobile tech helps lower alcohol intake among heavy drinkers

Mobile technologies that track blood alcohol concentration (BAC) show potential in reducing alcohol intake among individuals with heavy drinking, reveals a study.

A total of 32,179 individuals voluntarily purchased a mobile breathalyzer and provided at least three ad-lib readings between 2016 and 2022. A paired smartphone application also allowed users to enter a BAC self-estimate before the measured BAC level was displayed.

The authors then analysed collected observations during active consumption (BAC >0.00 percent) from breathalyzer users who opted to share anonymized data. Participants who showed inattentive patterns of guessing were excluded from self-estimation analyses. The final dataset consisted of 787,393 BAC readings and 387,643 self-estimates.

The accuracy of BAC guesses improved by 2.38 percent over the course of breathalyzer use, with significant variations in the associations between breathalyzer use and BAC levels according to the participants’ initial drinking levels (b, ‒0.0062, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], ‒0.0065 to ‒0.0059).

BAC levels among heavy-drinking participants showed an average decrease from 0.106 percent to 0.096 percent, while lighter-drinking participants demonstrated a reverse trend, with levels increasing from 0.058 percent to 0.067 percent.

A similar interaction also appeared for BAC underestimation (b, ‒0.0058, 95 percent CI, ‒0.0066 to ‒0.0049), with the likelihood of underestimation declining among heavy alcohol drinkers and increasing among light drinkers.

“The results indicate promise for mobile BAC-tracking technologies as a low-impact intervention with the potential to decrease drinking among individuals who drink heavily—a population particularly susceptible to alcohol-related problems,” the authors said.

“In contrast, inverted trends emerged for light-drinking individuals, highlighting the need for empirical research in the fast-moving landscape of digital health,” they added.