ARCH Lab Presents Research on Alcohol and Cancer Messaging at SBM 2026

At this year’s Society of Behavioral Medicine (SBM) Annual Meeting in our lab's hometown of Chicago, we showcased four posters related to a large, collaborative project to increase awareness in young women on the link between alcohol consumption and breast cancer risk. Funded by the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, the study involves collaborators from Rutgers University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Michigan State University, the Ohio State University, and Northwestern University.

Through four poster presentations, we outline the formative findings of our research that will be used in a randomized control trial to test the effectiveness of a longitudinal communication intervention on young women's awareness, attitudes, and behaviors related to alcohol and cancer risk.

At SBM, we first showed how young adult women decide what content to view, engage with, and share on social media (Poster 1). Then, we talked about a novel method for conducting co-design focus group groups, using Midjourney to generate high-fidelity prototype messages (Poster 2). We shared insights on young women's perceptions of these AI-generated messages in Poster 3. Finally, we discussed results of a second round of focus groups where we evaluate the effectiveness of these refined messages using learner verification theory (Poster 4).

Take a look at the posters below!

Poster 1: Insights into Young Women's Social Media Sharing Behaviors

Poster 2: Integrating AI into the Co-design Process to Develop Social Media Messages about Alcohol and Cancer Risk

Poster 3: Young Adult Women's Perceptions of Co-designed AI-generated Alcohol and Breast Cancer Message Imagery

Poster 4: Co-designing Messages about Alcohol as a Breast Cancer Risk Factor Using Learner Verification Theory