WOMENS ALCOHOL USE, DRINKING CONTEXT, AND VICTIMIZATION

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APPLICANT'S ABSTRACT: A Mentored Research Scientist Development Award is requested to enable the Candidate to develop a productive, independent research career assessing the relationships among alcohol use, drinking context, and women's risk for victimization. This award will provide the resources and time needed to integrate the Candidate's skills in observation and analysis of behavior with research in the area of alcohol-related victimization. Training in qualitative research methodologies (e.g., interview techniques, video data) and additional analytic techniques (e.g., multivariate statistics, survey data analyses) will be particularly important for achieving this integration. Several career development activities are planned, including: 1) becoming more familiar with theories and literature on victimization, 2) developing additional quantitative and qualitative research skills, 3) gaining an understanding of alcohol administration procedures for laboratory analogue studies, and 4) fostering the Candidate's professional development as an alcohol researcher, through consultations with experts in the field and conference attendance. Two studies are proposed during the MRSDA period that will allow the Candidate to utilize existing and newly developed skills for conducting research. The proposed research will assess the role of exposure to the potentially aggressive drinking context of bars on women's risk for victimization (Study 1) and the extent to which alcohol impairs women's ability to recognize and avoid dangerous situations (Study 2). Based on the literature, a conceptual framework has been developed to guide this research. Study 1 includes a survey of 200 women bar drinkers and an event-based prospective assessment of bar-related aggressive experiences. Study 2 Is a laboratory analogue study using quantitative and qualitative data collection techniques (e.g., questionnaires, observations) to assess changes in risk perception and behavior following actual alcohol consumption. A better understanding of the factors that increase women's risk for victimization when drinking in bars will be important for developing programs that increase awareness and decrease the negative consequences associated with drinking in bars.