Our experts supported a national alcohol awareness healthcare provider to understand the impact of their mobile application on users’ alcohol consumption and determine which features in the app predicted long-term user engagement.

The client was an independent alcohol awareness healthcare provider that focuses on alcohol misuse and health-related harm issues. The healthcare provider aims to provide digital tools and information to help their user base make better choices about their drinking.

To prove the healthcare provider’s digital app’s effectiveness in supporting users to self-monitor and reduce their alcohol intake. Additionally, the healthcare provider also wished to understand better which users were more likely to engage with different app features and gather more detailed qualitative feedback on usability and acceptability for healthcare providers to modify and improve future iterations.

In phase one of this research project, data from over 100,000 app users was pulled from digital records and analyzed to determine if self-reported alcohol consumption levels reduced over a 3-month usage period. Further analyses were conducted to understand if usage patterns differed by user demographic details and degree of engagement with different in-app features, such as goal setting, rewards and achievements, geolocation, and real-time preventative alert monitoring consumption levels. In phase two, qualitative research interviews were conducted with a subset of app users to understand better their perceptions of usability and acceptability of the product.

Findings from the initial quantitative phase of this research allowed the healthcare provider to prove that their app effectively encouraged users to reduce their drinking, with engaged users reporting a significant reduction in alcohol intake (-3.68 units/week) between first use and 12-week follow up. Findings from the qualitative research phase were used to offer recommendations to the healthcare provider on product improvements for future iterations of the app and ongoing data collection requirements to support future impact assessment.