Perceived Pubertal Timing and Adolescent Alcohol Use: The Role of Peers & Parents

• In Event: 3131 - Section on Alcohol, Drugs, and Tobacco - Open Paper Session

Abstract

Pubertal timing (PT) refers to whether children experience early, on-time, or late pubertal development relative to same age and gender peers. Compared to children who experience on-time PT, early developers are more likely to drink frequently and heavily in adolescence and late developers are less likely. Theoretically, associations may be spurious reflections of childhood risk factors or reflect changes in peers or parental influences. Prior research has had limited ability to address these confounding factors and has often not tested an inclusive set of mediators to explain the PT-alcohol relationship. We examine the associations of perceived PT with frequent and heavy alcohol use in adolescence, as well as potential mediators of this relationship, using intergenerational, nationally representative prospective data from the ongoing UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS). The MCS sampled infants who resided in the UK between 2000 and 2002 and followed them into adolescence. We use information from child and parent interviews when the child was modal ages 7, 11, and 14 (n=5,757 girls; 5,799 boys). Children who experienced early PT were the most likely to engage in frequent and heavy drinking, even after controlling for a host of childhood confounders. The PT-alcohol association is primarily due to relatively high parental alcohol permissiveness and steeper increases in alcohol-using peers among early PT youth. Late PT was protective, as youth report lower rates of these mediating risk factors. These effects are consistent for both boys and girls. Results suggest that psychosocial mediators of biological changes are potential avenues for prevention.

Authors

• Rebecca Ann Bucci, Penn State University

• Jeremy Staff, The Pennsylvania State University

• Jennifer L. Maggs, Pennsylvania State University

• Lorah D. Dorn, The Pennsylvania State University