Frequently Asked Questions

You are paid monthly for visits and for completing study tasks. You can also earn bonuses for meeting task goals and providing access to your smartphone’s location data.

• At the start of the study you will decide whether you wish to be paid on a debit card or by direct deposit. You will receive information about each option at your first visit.
• You will earn $80 for completing three phone visits: $40 at the start, and $20 each at the middle and end of the study.
• You can earn about $55 a month in payment and bonuses for completing all daily surveys and sharing all your data.
• We will also pay you $50 per month to help make sure you always have cell service while on the study.

The total compensation could be valued up to approximately $530 if you complete all tasks over the full 4 months of the study.

Completing all of your daily surveys and not turning off data sharing, are two critical parts of your participation, so follow the study guides and suggestions from our study staff to earn maximum payment.

Payments are issued on the 15th OR the 30th of each month, depending on your enrollment date. If your staff member did not tell you which day to expect your own payment at your one-week check in, please contact us.

When the 15th or 30th falls on a weekend or bank holiday, payments are made the following Monday or the following business day.

Payments will be deposited to your reloadable debit card by 5pm Chicago time, on the day of payment.

No. We will never be able to see any of your transactions. We will also not be able to view the balance of your debit card if that is your payment option.

No, but please contact UW study staff to discuss options if there is a problem with having it mailed to you.

If your mailing address changes during the study, please contact the UW study staff as soon as possible. We will need to update your payment information including new mailing addresses.

• Participants will download the FollowMee app onto their phone to share your location data with the study team.
• Participants will be asked to complete daily surveys and longer surveys at the start, middle, and end of the study.
• You will receive a text message with personalized feedback about your recovery every evening.
• You can take part in the study for up to 4 months.

As long as you are completing study tasks, the study can last up to 4 months

• The daily update should take about a minute or two to complete. 
• The length of the monthly update will vary but it will likely take anywhere from 20-30 minutes to complete.

This information can be found on this web page, and also in your copy of the consent form.

Your participation is totally voluntary, meaning that you do not have to complete study tasks if you do not want to. Just keep in mind that not completing the study tasks could reduce your payments and bonuses for the next month, and our team may need withdraw you from the study if you stop doing too many tasks.

You can temporarily turn off your location data sharing by adjusting your phone’s Location Settings.  However, doing so for 6 or more hours will reduce your next study payment by $5.

Additionally, you must not disable location sharing for more than 12 hours in a single 4-week period. Doing so may cause study staff to withdrawal you from the study with no option of reenrolling.

Yes, if you are not providing enough data, study staff will reach out to you to notify you that you are not completing the minimum requirements. If you continue to not meet minimum data requirements, our team may need withdraw you from the study.

If you turn your phone off:

• Turning off a phone will stop collection of location data.

If you turn your cellular data off:

• The STAR system app and text messages will continue even if cellular data is turned off.

Protecting your privacy is our highest priority. None of your data on our secure server is linked to your real name; instead it is all identified by coded participant numbers, which is a random string of letters and numbers assigned to your data when we enroll you.

Additionally, all of the information we collect in this study is protected by our Certificate of Confidentiality (CoC). Our CoC protects against the subpoena of any participants data and prevents researchers from having to share any identifiable health information without your permission. More information about the CoC can be found in the Consent Form for this study.

Only study staff will be able to access to the servers. The servers are protected by secure password-protected network authentication protocols as well as UW staff password authentication.

Some of your data could be accessed if someone was to gain access to your unlocked phone. It is also possible, although very unlikely, that someone could access your data if they hack into the secure server. However, hacking the server is extremely unlikely to happen and even if it did happen, we have protected your data as outlined above.

Yes, UW follows federal research guidelines for notifying participants in the unlikely event of a data breach.

There are no consequences if you drink once, a few times, or even “slip” back to frequent drinking:

• Tracking times when you drink are an important part of our research project. We ask you to report your drinking honestly on your Daily survey, since we are trying to identify the feelings, events, and behavior patterns that predict future chances of drinking when you are trying not to drink.
• Reporting this information has no effect on your continued participation in the study or your payment.

If you are unable to complete study tasks due to illness or injury, please contact our UW study staff as soon as possible so that we can discuss your options.

Yes, if you contact UW study staff we can pause your participation.

If you know that you will be going somewhere that will put you outside of WiFi/cellular access for an extended period of time, please contact UW study staff as soon as possible so that we can discuss your options.

Contact us right away. The team will stop collecting your data, and discuss the next steps for getting your new phone enrolled.

For non-urgent matters, call us at (608) 262-1362; or email star@psych.wisc.edu.

If you need to talk to someone immediately, please contact your regular treatment provider or dial 911 if it is an emergency.