ArticleBMC public health2021
The impact of celebrity influence and national media coverage on users of an alcohol reduction app: a natural experiment.
Article in BMC public health, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of media campaign videos on stigma and attitudes towards treatment seeking for alcohol use disorder: a randomized controlled study.BMC public health · 2023Trial
- User-Reported Issues With Mental Health Apps: Machine-Assisted Topic Analysis of Social Media Posts.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2026Article
- Exploring Motives for Reducing Alcohol Consumption Among Users of an Alcohol Reduction App: Content Analysis.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2026Article
- Risk factors for harmful alcohol consumption among employees and intervention strategies used in the workplace: current state of knowledge based on a literature review.Frontiers in public health · 2025Review
- Do you 'like' problems? The linkage between college students' interactions with alcohol-related content on social media and their alcohol-related problems.Drug and alcohol review · 2024Article
- The Effect of the First UK COVID-19 Lockdown on Users of the Drink Less App: Interrupted Time Series Analysis of Sociodemographic Characteristics, Engagement, and Alcohol Reduction.Journal of medical Internet research · 2022Article
- "Drinkers Like Me": A Thematic Analysis of Comments Responding to an Online Article About Moderating Alcohol Consumption.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundSmartphone apps are increasingly used for health-related behaviour change and people discover apps through different sources. However, it is unclear whether users differ by mode of app discovery. Drink Less is an alcohol reduction app that received national media coverage in the UK caused by celebrity influence (a male TV and radio national broadcaster, aged 51). Our aim was to compare users who discovered the app before and after this coverage.
methodsA natural experiment assessing the impact of media coverage of Drink Less on users' socio-demographic and drinking characteristics, app engagement levels, and extent of alcohol reduction. The study period was from 17th May 2017 to 23rd January 2019, with media coverage starting on 21st August 2018. Users were 18 years or over, based in the UK and interested in drinking less. Interrupted time series analyses using Generalised Additive Mixed Models were conducted for each outcome variable aggregated at the weekly level.
resultsIn 66 weeks prior to the media coverage, 8617 users downloaded the app and 18,959 in 23 weeks afterwards. There was a significant step-level increase in users' mean age (B = 8.17, p < .001) and a decrease in the percentage of female users (B = -27.71, p < .001), though these effects dissipated non-linearly over time. No effect of media coverage was detected on employment type or on the percentage of at-risk drinkers, though the mean Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test score was lower after the media coverage (B = -1.43, p = .031). There was a step-level increase in app engagement - number of sessions (B = 3.45, p = .038) and number of days used (B = 2.30, p = .005) - which continued to increase over time following quadratic trends.
conclusionsCelebrity influence leading to national media coverage in the UK of the Drink Less app was associated with more people downloading the app who were male, older and engaged with the app; and did not appear to impact employment inequality.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.