A Longitudinal Examination of Problem Drinking and Neighborhood Disorder from Age 21 to 39

Introduction: Neighborhood social disorder is often characterized by high levels of crime, low safety, abundant graffiti and rundown buildings. Living in disordered neighborhoods has been associated with problem drinking as well as poor health outcomes and may be a mechanism by which disparities across socioeconomic and racial/ethnic groups persist. Few studies, however, are able to test the stability of these associations to understand how neighborhood might affect drinking, and vice versa, over the course of several years. This paper examines associations between neighborhood disorder and problem drinking across a nearly 20 year span of young adulthood.

Methods: Data are drawn from the Seattle Social Development Project (SSDP), a longitudinal study originating in 18 public elementary schools which overrepresented high crime neighborhoods in Seattle, Washington. Analyses included 769 individuals assessed over 6 study waves from ages 21 to 39. The sample is gender balanced and ethnically diverse. Individuals were assessed on DSM-IV criteria for alcohol abuse and dependence (alcohol use disorder [AUD]) symptoms at each adult wave. Perceived neighborhood disorder is measured at each wave from self-reported descriptions of the participant’s residential area concerning safety, crime, drug selling, violence and building environment. Latent growth curve modeling was employed to analyze trajectories of AUD symptoms and concurrent associations between perceived neighborhood disorder and AUD symptoms from age 21 to 39.

Results: Preliminary results indicate that, as expected, AUD symptoms decrease on average as individuals move into adulthood. At five out of six time points, increased neighborhood disorder was associated with higher levels of AUD symptoms after controlling for demographic characteristics and education. Further analyses will investigate potential neighborhood selection effects and reciprocal longitudinal associations between AUD symptoms and neighborhood disorder. All models will consider differences across gender and ethnic categories.

Conclusions: Results confirm a link between perceived neighborhood disorder and problem drinking, and they extend prior research by demonstrating stability in these relationships across young adulthood. Examining the consistency of these findings across traditionally disadvantaged demographic groups in the US and considering their generalizability with other samples is important.