Health-Related Desistance from Problem Drinking in Midlife Older Adulthood

? DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The major objectives of the proposed Pathway to Independence Award are the acceleration and completion of Dr. Matthew Lee's training in developmental alcohol research and the launching of his career as an independent scientist. Dr. Lee is a postdoctoral fellow nearing completion of an NIAAA-funded T32 training fellowship in the department of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri (MU). The two-year training (K99) phase of the proposed project will complete Dr. Lee's training in the examination of processes of pathological drinking desistance across the lifespan. With supervision, Dr. Lee will conduct research assessing how the processes that drive desistance from pathological drinking may vary across developmental stages. He will receive training via coursework, readings, and consultation to increase his knowledge of integrative data analysis, data collection methodology, strategies for conducting practically-informative research, developmental issues of midlife and older adults, theories of desistance from pathological drinking, and multilevel structural equation modeling. He will attend conferences related to alcohol use/misuse and developmental issues of young adulthood and older adulthood. Dr. Lee will also dedicate a great deal of his time to the dissemination of findings from the proposed research through manuscript preparation and submission. The proposed mentor (Dr. Sher) and collaborators/consultants (Drs. Curran, Hussong, Bauer, Heath, Bucholz, Chassin, Dearing, Caspi, Infurna, and Steinley) collectively provide expertise that is ideally suited to facilitate te successful completion of the proposed training and research activities. Further, MU is a world-class research institution, with the resources necessary to facilitate successful completion of the training (K99) phase of this proposed project. The three-year independent (R00) phase will allow Dr. Lee to further examine processes of pathological drinking desistance among midlife and older adults via new data collection. This work will greatly extend Dr. Lee's past research on young adult developmental changes in risky drinking, including in ways that address NIAAA's emphases on lifespan development and the need for greater empirical attention to risky drinking among midlife and older adults.