Dr. Brian Suffoletto is a practicing emergency physician and NIH-funded investigator with expertise in designing and testing digital behavioral interventions. After clinical training in Emergency Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, he completed a Master's of Science with a focus on Clinical Research. In 2014, he was awarded an NIAAA Career Development Award (K23) to develop skills and knowledge on addiction treatment and behavioral interventions. He is currently the co-PI of an NIAAA R01 award to test mechanisms of change for different digital interventions to reduce alcohol consumption in young adults, PI of a Cooperative Agreement with NHTSA to test digital interventions for vehicle safety, and co-PI on an NIMH ALACRITY center project to test digital interventions to improve mental health self-efficacy and linkage with care.
Dr. Suffoletto has pioneered the development of digital micro-interventions for behavior change, where individuals interact with automated programs periodically in the context of their day-to-day lives. He has developed and tested such micro-interventions across a range of health behaviors including alcohol consumption, medication adherence, sleep, self-management of post-concussive symptoms, breastfeeding, mental health, and hypertension self-management. Through these studies, he has shown the importance of behavioral strategies including engaging individuals in specific, short-term goals that are tailored to their past performance, providing self-efficacy support and performance feedback.