Population Health Sciences

Center for Patient Partnerships, January 2007-present
Advisors: Peter Daly and Sarah Davis, JD
Projects: Volunteer student patient advocate, various improvement projects

University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, 2006-present
Advisors: John Mullahy, PhD, and Mike Fleming, MD, MPH
Project: Demand curve predictions of college alcohol outcomes (funded by an NIAAA F30 NRSA grant)

University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, 2004-2006
Advisor: Maureen Smith, MD, MPH, PhD
Project: Patient response to signs and symptoms following ambulatory surgery

Coro Fellows Program in Public Affairs-Pittsburgh, September 2001-June 2002
Advisor: Suzanne Motheral
Project: Developed an understanding of and the ability to affect systems of change within communities (www.coro.org)

Department of Veterans Affairs, Summer 2000
Advisor: Barry Goldstein, MD, PhD, National Spinal Cord Injury and Disorders Strategic Healthcare Group
Project: Designed a study to address gaps in evidence found in literature review of drug intervention efficacy for chronic neuropathic pain secondary to spinal cord injury

Northwestern University Medical School, summer 1999
Advisors: C.J. Heckman, PhD
Project: Analyzed voltage clamp recordings of motor neurons relative to various highly specific pharmacological blockers to identify the contributions of voltage-sensitive channels in the dendrites of spinal neurons to motor output

Alcohol use during adolescence and early adulthood can adversely impact occupational, health and social development. College students have a particularly high prevalence of frequent, heavy alcohol use. However, college students have highly variable alcohol use patterns that are influenced by numerous personal and contextual factors.

Behavioral economics, specifically demand curve analysis, accommodates such factors in its description of individual resource allocation to alcohol-related behavior. Preliminary evidence suggests that demand curve analysis is an innovative method to evaluate and predict an individual's alcohol problem use and their responsiveness to treatment.

Currently, my research builds on a unique opportunity to apply these behavioral economic measures of alcohol demand into the College Health Intervention Projects Study (CHIPS), the largest ongoing clinical trial of brief intervention in college students (R01 AA014685-01). The results will be used to inform the following aims:

• To estimate and characterize alcohol demand curves
• To estimate econometrically the ability of alcohol demand curves to distinguish between levels of alcohol use
• To estimate econometrically the ability of alcohol demand curves to predict responsiveness to brief intervention
• To evaluate whether changes in alcohol demand curves correlate with brief intervention outcomes
• To construct models of alcohol use trajectory
• To assess whether demand curves predict alcohol use trajectories.

Results will determine how well demand curve characteristics - an innovative measure of alcohol use behavior - assess and predict alcohol-related risk and treatment responsiveness among a college population.

Certain HE, Harahan BJ, Saewuyc EM, Fleming MF. 2009. Condom use in heavy drinking college students: the importance of always using condoms. J Am Coll Health 58:187-94. PMCID: 2789340

Barrett B, Harahan B, Brown D, Zhang Z, Brown R. 2007. Sufficiently important difference for common cold: severity reduction. Ann Fam Med 5:216-23. PMCID: 1886488

Harahan BJ. "Behavioral economics: Validating measures of high-risk drinking." Podium presentation at the NIAAA Training Workshop, Sept. 28-29, 2007, Indianapolis, IN.

Harahan BJ. "MD-PhD Students: Nuts, bolts, and a personal perspective." Pre-conference workshop presentation in "How to build a sustainable NIH-funded research program" moderated by Mike Fleming, MD, MPH. North American Primary Care Research Group Annual Meeting, Oct. 15, 2006, Tucson, AZ.

Harahan BJ, Smith MA, Hundt AS, Springman SR, Carayon P. "Factors Affecting Patient Response to Symptoms after Outpatient Surgery." Poster presentation at the National Research Service Award (NRSA) Trainee Conference, June 25, 2005, Boston, MA.