What are you high on now?

Scenario: A group of friends are drinking at the local pub, when one gets a cell phone call. He takes it in a quiet corner; nothing unusual. But this isn't a "What's Up" call from a friend: It's a "What-are-you-doing-right-now?" call from an automated voice system programmed to collect data in real time, via cell phone, from participants enrolled in research studies on alcohol, marijuana and the situational factors that surround their use.

R. Lorraine Collins, PhD, a health behavior researcher at the University at Buffalo, devised this simpler and more efficient way of collecting data by adapting an earlier method that depended on Palm Pilots and other personal digital assistants, or PDAs.

She currently is using this cell-phone-based interactive voice response technology, or IVR, in a new three-year, $1.39 million study funded this September by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, to investigate whether physical activity can help decrease marijuana use by young adults.

She also will use this technology in a new two-year, $783,474 study, funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, to analyze moods, motives and social factors in study participants who use malt liquor and other substances, in combination or separately.