INTRODUCTION
deaths
DISEASE
Alcohol consumption is a leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality globally, resulting in 5.3% (3 million) of all deaths and 5.1% of all disease burden annually (Low rates of help-seeking for alcohol use problems are associated with multiple individual-level and structural barriers (Telephone-delivered interventions have considerable potential to overcome many of the structural (e.g. distance to services, in-person treatment wait times) and individual (e.g. readiness for in-person treatment, fear of shame/stigma) barriers to accessing treatment for alcohol problems. Yet, until now they have been underutilized in substance use populations (Therefore, this study sought to determine the proportion of people presenting to telephone-delivered alcohol treatment who are first-time help-seekers, and utilized latent class analysis (LCA) to identify relatively homogenous and unobserved (i.e. latent) classes of individuals based on perceived barriers to help-seeking for alcohol use problems, to increase our understanding of the barriers this format of treatment may help to address.