Publications by authors named "Jessica A Blayney"

Background: Despite intervention efforts, negative alcohol-related consequences continue to impact young adults. Most alcohol interventions focus on reducing alcohol consumption; however, previous research indicates that focusing solely on alcohol use may not decrease consequences. Additionally, many alcohol interventions have diminishing engagement, and few are designed with young adults involved in the development process.

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To date, most sexual assault research has focused on specific perpetrator tactics, including verbal coercion, substance-related incapacitation, and force. Responding to recent calls to assess a broader range of nonconsensual sexual experiences, we examined the occurrence and outcomes of sexual assault without warning - when a perpetrator "just does" a behavior without giving a chance to say "no." Participants were 850 college students (M = 19.

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Alcohol's link with sexuality is long-standing and prominent. While research continues to document robust associations between drinking and sexual behavior, scientific attention now centers primarily on evaluating mechanisms and attendant theoretical frameworks to advance our understanding of how alcohol exerts a causal impact. We describe four domains with reliable evidence of alcohol effects: sexualized social perceptions, sexual arousal, sexual risk taking, and sexual assault.

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Background: Alcohol use and its related consequences are a public health problem among young adults. Building upon efficacious personalized normative feedback interventions, dynamic norms can be used to highlight the decreasing prevalence of alcohol use over time among young adults' peers, thereby increasing their motivation to change drinking consistent with the trend. Because limited research has examined dynamic norms feedback interventions for alcohol use, we examined the acceptability and initial efficacy of such an intervention, and potential iatrogenic effects of showing norms feedback about drinking to light drinkers and nondrinkers.

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Cannabis use in college students has increased over time and is linked to negative consequences. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many students experienced greater stress, which could heighten cannabis use and related consequences. This study was designed to clarify motivations for cannabis use that may link pandemic-related stressors to time spent high and cannabis-related consequences.

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Young adult women report high condom use intentions, but inconsistent condom use. Cognitive appraisals during sexual encounters are important determinants of condom use decisions, but a nuanced understanding of what cognitions emerge during women's "hot states" (e.g.

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Social support after sexual assault is important for recovery, but violence and recovery may also challenge relationships. We examined functional and structural social support changes following sexual assault and their association with mental health. College women (=544) with and without a sexual assault history completed a cross-sectional survey assessing current and past egocentric social networks.

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Article Synopsis
  • Sexual victimization is a major public health issue, with sexual and gender minoritized (SGM) individuals facing a higher risk compared to their heterosexual and cisgender counterparts, largely due to societal stigma.* -
  • Recent research emphasizes that bisexual and gender minoritized individuals are particularly vulnerable, with limited studies addressing the specific risk factors and post-victimization challenges they face.* -
  • To improve prevention and intervention strategies, it's crucial for future studies to enhance their assessment and research methods to better understand victimization risks and support recovery in SGM individuals.*
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Risk for unwanted sexual experiences can emerge in social contexts-the same contexts that early college women navigate with their friends. Though friends naturally engage in prevention strategies, less is known about how capable guardianship influences risk. Using multilevel structural equation modeling, the present study examined guardianship at the person- and situation-level.

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Article Synopsis
  • Engaging in hazardous drinking behaviors, like playing drinking games and pre-partying, is linked to excessive drinking and adverse outcomes in college students, particularly those with social anxiety who drink to cope.
  • The study analyzed data from 981 college students to explore how social anxiety symptoms influenced their drinking habits during pre-parties, particularly focusing on the motives behind their drinking.
  • Findings indicated that higher social anxiety correlated with specific motives that led to increased alcohol consumption and more negative consequences during pre-party events, emphasizing the role of psychosocial factors in these behaviors.
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Objective: Women with sexual assault (SA) histories report heavier and more frequent drinking. Consistent with the motivational model of alcohol use, women with SA histories may consume alcohol to both downregulate negative emotions and upregulate positive ones. The present event-level study used a Bayesian multilevel moderated mediation approach to examine the extent to which women's alcohol use and intoxication was influenced by coping and enhancement drinking motives to downregulate or upregulate affect, respectively.

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Article Synopsis
  • This scoping review focuses on the simultaneous use of alcohol and marijuana (SAM) among young adults, aiming to clarify its prevalence, patterns, and consequences in this demographic.
  • The review distinguishes between SAM and same-day co-use, analyzing data from peer-reviewed studies published between January 2000 and August 2021.
  • It extracts data on factors such as sample characteristics, study procedures, and psychosocial correlates to provide a comprehensive summary of SAM usage among individuals aged 18 to 30.
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Among US adults, the highest rates of hesitancy to receive the COVID-19 vaccine are among young adults aged 18 to 25. Vaccine hesitancy is particularly concerning among young adults in college, where social interactions on densely populated campuses can lead to substantial community spread. Given that many colleges have opted not to mandate vaccines, identification of modifiable predictors of vaccine hesitancy - such as perceived social norms - is key to informing interventions to promote vaccine uptake.

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Background: Incapacitated rape (IR) is common in college and has been linked to heavier post-assault drinking and consequences, including blackouts. Following IR, college students may adjust their drinking in ways meant to increase perceived safety, such as enhancing situational control over one's drinks through prepartying, which is drinking before going out to a main social event. Although it is possible that prepartying could influence risk related to IR, it is unclear whether or how prepartying and IR are associated.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study examines the effectiveness of Personalized Normative Feedback (PNF) interventions on hazardous drinking among college women, particularly focusing on those with a history of alcohol-related incapacitated rape (IR).
  • A total of 1,188 heavy drinking college women participated, with 16.3% reporting a history of IR, which was linked to higher baseline drinking levels and increased readiness to change behavior.
  • Results indicated that while PNF was perceived as impactful particularly for women with past IR, it led to lower hazardous drinking levels after 12 months, suggesting PNF is a useful and accessible intervention for this at-risk group.
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Objective: College women with sexual assault histories report greater heavy drinking relative to those without histories of assault. Moreover, individuals with sexual assault histories often have difficulty regulating emotions and tolerating distress, which can lead to a problematic pattern of drinking to cope. Thus, we evaluated the initial efficacy of a web-based alcohol intervention that included strategies to reduce drinking and improve regulatory skills for heavy drinking college women with sexual assault histories.

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HIV/AIDS remains a significant health threat and alcohol is a robust contributing factor. After 25 years of alcohol challenge studies investigating alcohol-related behavioral risk (ARBR), much has been learned delineating how drinking influences sexual transmission. We examine this research and consider its relevance for interventions in the era of antiretrovirals.

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Hooking up, which refers to a sexual encounter (ranging from kissing to penetrative sex) between individuals who are not in a committed relationship, is an increasingly normative form of sexual exploration among emerging adults. Past research has focused on hookups within a heteronormative context, and some of this work has examined hookups as a way to cope with distress. Building on this work, we examined the role of hookups as a means for lesbian and bisexual women to cope with minority stress through increasing connection and engagement with the LGBTQ (lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender/queer or questioning) community.

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Article Synopsis
  • * Participants (N = 21) engaged with modules on alcohol reduction and emotion regulation, providing feedback that uncovered themes about content, delivery, and areas needing improvement.
  • * Results suggest that incorporating user feedback is key to enhancing the intervention's relevance and engagement for the target audience.
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Sexual victimization (SV) risk can begin in social contexts, ones where friends are present, though it is unclear how friends might be integrated into SV prevention. Using focus groups, female college drinkers described (a) the role of friends in preventing SV, (b) the strategies friends use to reduce vulnerability, and (c) the barriers to implementation. Friends-based strategies (keeping tabs on one another, using signals to convey potential danger, interrupting escalating situations, taking responsibility for friends, relying on male friends) and barriers (intoxication, preoccupation, situation ambiguity, social consequences) were discussed.

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Background And Objectives: Previous research has yielded equivocal findings regarding whether internalizing symptoms are risk factors for adolescent hazardous alcohol use (AU), specifically in the presence of externalizing symptoms. This may be due to the type of internalizing symptoms examined (ie, distress vs fear), and the use of primarily normative rather than clinical samples. Thus, we tested internalizing and externalizing symptom interactions as they relate to adolescent hazardous AU in a high-risk, clinical sample of adolescents.

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Article Synopsis
  • Sexual minority women (SMW), including lesbians and bisexuals, face higher risks of heavy drinking and sexual victimization compared to heterosexual women, spurring this study to explore these risks in detail.
  • The research involved 1,057 SMW participants and utilized logistic regressions to analyze if heavy drinking and number of male hookup partners in the first year predicted incapacitated rape (IR) in the second year.
  • Results indicated that increased heavy drinking raised the risk of IR, particularly for SMW with more than one male hookup partner, with significant findings for bisexual women but not for lesbian women due to fewer reported male hookups.
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: Sexual assault (SA) frequently occurs under the influence of alcohol, and is often followed by both drinking and posttraumatic stress symptoms, including intrusive memories. Although many theories attempt to explain the co-occurrence of alcohol use and posttraumatic stress, one possibility not yet considered is that SA memories may be more likely to occur when there is an encoding-retrieval match in alcohol intoxication state. : The aim of this study was to examine the potential for intrusive memories of SA to be state-dependent, such that intrusive memories for alcohol-involved SA may be more likely to occur in the context of subsequent alcohol intoxication.

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Studies show that sexual minority women (SMW) report more hazardous alcohol use patterns and higher rates of tobacco use than exclusively heterosexual women. Despite the public health implications of drinking and smoking, especially when they co-occur, little is known about SMW's daily use patterns or the factors that may facilitate concurrent use. The present study seeks to identify patterns of daily concurrent alcohol and tobacco use among SMW and heterosexual women, including socio-environmental drinking contexts of concurrent use.

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Objective: Both trauma exposure and coping are strong predictors of mental health outcomes. There is evidence that trauma and coping are linked, with cross-sectional work suggesting that individuals with more trauma exposure show poorer coping ability (i.e.

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