Department of Family and Community Medicine Visiting Scholars Lecture Series

"Improving alcohol use disorder treatment outcomes: What role can negative affect and affect regulation play?"

Alcohol is among the most widely used mood-altering substance in the United States and alcohol-related problems add more than $250 billion to healthcare costs each year. Though many people consume alcohol in ways that pose no risks to health, nearly 15 million people in the U.S. meet diagnostic criteria for alcohol use disorder.

Many people seek treatment following a referral from a primary care provider. However, there are well-documented barriers (e.g., time, workflow constraints, and stigma)that prevent widespread adoption of alcohol-specific screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment by primary care providers. Behavioral health clinicians can provide screening and treatment for alcohol use disorder, reducing demands on primary care provider time while ensuring optimal outcomes for patients.

In this presentation, Dr. Linn will review his program of research in behavioral treatment of alcohol use disorder and the relationship of emotional processes and alcohol use. Dr. Linn’s work has demonstrated that negative emotions must be addressed for treatment to be effective and that reductions in negative emotions are a mechanism of behavior change. The presentation will conclude with a discussion of Dr. Linn’s next steps, which leverage mechanism of behavior change research in service of novel intervention development.

Dr. Linn’s research focuses on alcohol use disorder, risk factors for relapse (especially emotion regulation / stress response), and interventions to reduce this risk. He is a social worker with mental health and addiction related counseling experience and recently completed a three-year NIAAA-funded T32 as a post-doc. Currently he is a Penn State FCM research faculty candidate.