An observational study in Alcohol Drinking and Alcohol Intoxication, sponsored by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Recruiting at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 21 Years and older, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2025-08-06.
Sponsored by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign · Observational
The study will employ a combined laboratory-ambulatory design. Participants will engage in ambulatory assessment over the course of 14 days, wearing biosensors assessing transdermal alcohol concentration (TAC) and providing breathalyzer readings in real-world contexts. Also during this period, participants will attend three laboratory alcohol-administration sessions scheduled at one-week intervals, with alcohol dose and rate of consumption manipulated within and between participants, respectively. Laboratory visits will also double as ambulatory orientation, check-in, and close-out sessions.
Laboratory Procedures: The aim of the laboratory study is to capture variability in the TAC-BAC relationship across individuals in a controlled context, featuring manipulations theorized to confound transdermal measurements of BAC and so ensuring adequate variability in these factors in the broader dataset. Laboratory alcohol-administration sessions will be held at one-week intervals, scheduled at study initiation (day 0), study midpoint (day 7), and study end (day 14).
Alcohol-administration procedures will employ a within (alcohol dose) X between (rate of consumption) participant design. All participants will consume three doses of alcohol over the course of the three laboratory sessions, targeting peak blood alcohol concentration (BAC) levels of .03%, .06%, and .09% respectively. The order of alcohol doses will be counterbalanced across participants. The exact quantity of alcohol administered to each participant in order to achieve these target peak BACs will be calculated based on individualized formulas adjusting for drinking rate, sex, height, weight, and age (see formulas provided in Watson et al., (1981)). Rate of consumption will be manipulated between participants, with equal numbers of participants assigned to consume alcohol at relatively "fast" and "slow" rates. Beverage intake will be monitored to ensure participant comfort and even consumption across the beverage administration period. After beverage administration, participants will provide breath alcohol concentration (BrAC) readings at 10- min intervals.
In addition, during the laboratory procedures, participants will be exposed to environmental factors that are known to impact readings taken by transdermal sensors. These manipulations will allow the research team to train the machine learning algorithm to recognize and model for these environmental effects. These manipulations include: 1) Environmental alcohol: common household products containing alcohol (e.g., hand sanitizer, perfume, lotion containing alcohol) will be sprayed or applied in proximity to the transdermal sensor; 2) Sweating: Participants will be asked to engage in a brief 10-30 minute aerobic exercise while in a seated position (i.e., stationary biking) while under the supervision of a research assistant. This brief exercise will be designed simply to yield exertion to the point of sweating and not exertion beyond this point; 3) Arm Movements: Participants will be asked to engage in isolated body movements (e.g., arms and feet) to determine whether device shifting caused by such movements impact readings taken by transdermal sensors.
Ambulatory Procedures: This arm of the study aims to capture the TAC-BAC relationship among participants drinking in everyday settings. Ambulatory assessment will take place over 14 days. During laboratory session 1, prior to beverage administration, participants will be oriented to ambulatory study procedures. One or more transdermal device will be worn throughout participation. During orientation, participants will be trained to use the mobile breathalyzer. To avoid contamination of breathalyzer readings by mouth alcohol, participants will be instructed to wait 5 minutes after their last sip of alcohol to provide a reading. Also during this orientation session, participants will receive training in standard drink reporting (used to validate breathalyzer readings). During ambulatory assessment, participants will provide breathalyzer readings in response to both random and user-initiated prompts via their smartphones. On day 14 of the study, participants will attend a final laboratory session during which they will return study equipment as well as complete questionnaires asking them to reflect on their experience using the transdermal sensors and their likelihood to adopt a transdermal sensor application.
Since initial record creation, the study start date has been updated to conform to current ICMJE pre-registration requirements. Only participants recruited subsequent, and not prior to, this updated initiation date are included in reports from the main trial.
701 studies on the registry are indexed under Alcohol Drinking; 133 are open to participants now.
This study's planned enrollment of 240 is below the median of 312 across 74 observational studies indexed under Alcohol Drinking.
Browse Alcohol Drinking studies →University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is the lead sponsor of 191 studies on the registry; 29 are open to participants now.
Compared within Alcohol Drinking, the registry's first condition term, which may not be this study's main condition. Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily. How we classify →
Regular healthy drinkers aged 21+
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Exclusion Criteria:
Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
A reason a treatment, test or procedure should not be given to a particular person, such as an allergy, another illness or a medicine they take.
Contraindication
A reason a treatment, test or procedure should not be given to a particular person, such as an allergy, another illness or a medicine they take.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Alcohol administered orally at multiple doses and consumption speeds to test transdermal device accuracy
Transdermal estimates of alcohol consumption
We will assess the accuracy of transdermal estimates of drinking vs sobriety
Time frame: Across the 14 day period of the study
Transdermal estimates of drinking risk level
We will assess the accuracy of transdermal estimates of high risk drinking vs low risk drinking and sobriety
Time frame: Across the 14 day period of the study
Transdermal estimates of blood alcohol concentration
We will assess the accuracy of transdermal estimates of blood alcohol concentration (BAC)
Time frame: Across the 14 day period of the study
Plan to share: Undecided
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