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. 2025 Nov:170:108450.
doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2025.108450. Epub 2025 Aug 6.

Physical context of alcohol use and craving: An EMA exploratory study

Maria Costanza Benvenuti  1 , Edgar C Merkle  1 , Denis M McCarthy  2
Affiliations

Physical context of alcohol use and craving: An EMA exploratory study

Maria Costanza Benvenuti et al. Addict Behav. 2025 Nov.

Abstract

While environmental and physical contextual factors play an important role in alcohol use and motivation for use, assessment of the physical context of use, even when using ecological momentary assessments (EMA), has been limited. While EMA research has examined drinking locations at the event level using categories of drinking locations, there is considerable within-category variability in the attributes of drinking locations. Using data from a 6-week EMA study (N = 207), this exploratory study sought to determine drinking locations through the combination of EMA self-report and GPS coordinates. Through multilevel modeling, we also tested whether specific locations were associated with variability in drinking (self-reported drinking and breathalyzer readings) and craving for alcohol. Results indicated significant differences in both alcohol consumption and craving between home, friend's houses, and on-premises drinking locations. Our results offer proof of concept for using mobile and geospatial data to passively identify on-premise drinking locations. This approach has the potential to aid in the development of targeted intervention strategies that identify and mitigate risks associated with specific drinking environments.

Keywords: Alcohol use; Alcohol use locations; Craving; Ecological momentary assessments (EMA); GPS.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: The software (TigerAware) used in this study was developed by University of Missouri faculty members, Timothy J. Trull and Yi Shang and Drs. Trull and Shang hold equity stakes in TigerAware LLC. TigerAware LLC had no funding role in nor received any compensation for the present research.

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