Poster #28 - The Intergenerational Continuity of Drinking Habits in a Population Sample

• In Event: Poster Session 01

Abstract

Context: Alcohol abuse is associated with many health problems. Moreover, youth who use alcohol exhibit more deviant and criminal behaviors and are more likely to have academic difficulties than those who do not. Youth who start drinking early are likely to persist drinking throughout adulthood, and young drinkers are also more likely to use drugs. Prior research suggests that parents’ and their children’s alcohol use are associated. To better identify youth who are at risk of alcohol abuse, it is important to examine the extent to which alcohol abuse perpetuates from one generation to the next, and to identify the factors that are associated with reduced or exacerbated intergenerational continuity. The objectives of this study are to estimate the intergenerational associations between parents’ and their adolescents’ alcohol use and to test potential moderators including the parent’s sex (mother vs. father), the period of exposure to parental alcohol use (early childhood vs. early adolescence), parental education, and family income sufficiency. Participants: Participants are families involved in the Québec Longitudinal Study of Child Development (QLSCD), a study of 2120 children who were representative of children born in the Canadian province of Quebec in 1997-1998, and were followed from the age of 5 months to 21 years. Method: Mothers and fathers reported on their alcohol use when the child was aged 5 months old to 5 years old (early childhood) and 10 to 13 years old (early adolescence). Youth reported on their own alcohol use from ages 13 to 21. We calculated a score to indicate severity of alcohol use, which includes both frequency of use and frequency of binge drinking. Mothers and fathers reported on their education levels, and mothers reported on the household income and size, which were used to calculate income sufficiency (based on Statistics Canada thresholds). Preliminary results: Table 1 shows Spearman correlations between the mother’s alcohol use when the child was between 5 months and 13 years old, the father’s alcohol use when the child was between 5 months and 13 years old, and the adolescent’s alcohol use between 13 and 21 years of age. These preliminary results show that both parents’ use of alcohol is moderately correlated when the child is 5 months old (r = .33, p < .01), 5 years old (r = .35, p < .01), 10 years old (r = .40, p < .01), but modestly correlated when the child is 13 years old (r = .13, p < .01); both parents’ alcohol use is rather stable through the child’s early years (r’s from .33 to .73, p’s < .01); and parents’ alcohol use is modestly associated with the adolescent’s alcohol use, with similar correlation coefficients for mothers and fathers, and for the early childhood and early adolescence periods of exposure. The role of potential moderators will be formally explored with multiple regression analyses and structural equation modeling with SPSS and Mplus.

Authors

• Gabriel Bernard, Laval University
  Presenting Author

• Amelie Petitclerc, Laval University