In social isolation, Step Away attempts to curb bad habits
Patrick Dulin, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Alaska Anchorage, recently relaunched his smartphone app, Step Away, which helps people make healthy changes to their drinking habits (Photo by Sam Davenport).
A smartphone app developed by a University of Alaska Anchorage professor has recently relaunched, helping people make healthy changes in their drinking habits.
Patrick Dulin, an associate professor of psychology at UAA initially had the idea to create Step Away in 2008. He was working on a location-based feature for various fishing and hunting locations but realized the platform could benefit his field. He says users engage and track their progress with Step Away similarly to a Fitbit, while also keeping them accountable.
As Alaskans and countless others are hunkering down for the foreseeable future, social isolation ensues, which can lead to picking up old habits. Dulin notes that similar to a Fitbit, users engage and track their progress with Step Away, while also being held accountable.
The issue of how to reach people with substance abuse problems has always been present in Dulin’s work, so he put together the framework for a smartphone-based system to carry out those functions. He received funding for development and testing provided by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and tested the prototype with a group of individuals who were heavy drinkers. The majority of users wanted to reduce their alcohol function. After using the application for six weeks, overall alcohol use dropped by over half, and their heavy drinking days dropped by more than 60 percent.
“We’ve had some really good results,” Dulin said.
Results from Dulin’s first study were used to create the first app in 2013, which attracted attention from the Veterans Affairs Medical Centers in Seattle and Palo Alto, and subsequently adopted. The app was used amongst veterans, which helped reduce their drinking by around half.
Dulin also received funding from the New Zealand Health Research Council, which helped him create Step Away NZ — an app specifically designed for New Zealand users to find available support in the country. Users reduced their drinking by an average of 60 percent and reported substantial reductions in drinking-related life problems.
NIAAA funded Dulin again in 2018 to utilize results from previous research and create an app, along with a bot feature to interact with users about their habits.
“The features that are active and reach out to a person get utilized quite a lot, and the ones that require them to delve into the app and do their homework, they don’t get used that much,” Dulin said. “The bot is there coaching the person through a process.”
Step Away’s dashboard, which allows users to monitor progress, future goals and more.
The app gives people the opportunity to check in daily, every other day or weekly. It also provides a dashboard to monitor their progress: features like money saved, triggers experienced and future goals help guide the user. What’s even more exciting to Dulin is how users continue to use the app. After six months, up to 45 percent of people are still engaging with Step Away.
Dulin says a big issue in his field is whether or not those with substance abuse issues should stop cold turkey or practice harm reduction.
“There are definitely strong camps on either side, and the fact of the matter is I’m more in the harm reduction side because one of the things I know from our research is that 80 percent of the people who download the app or come into one of our studies — they want to moderate,” Dulin said.
Step Away can be purchased on the App Store and Google Play.