Abstract of Distinction: Distal and Proximal Associations of Parental Alcohol Use with Adolescent Alcohol Use and Young Adult Alcohol Abuse in a Finnish Birth Cohort

Introduction: Adolescent alcohol use is a significant public health concern. A large body of research has focused on identifying risk factors, such as parental alcohol use, that are associated with adolescent alcohol use and young adult alcohol abuse. This work has been important for the development of preventive interventions that, although effective, demonstrate small to medium to effect sizes. Intervention improvements will come from additional longitudinal research that provides a better understanding of distal and proximal risk influences within an ecological, multivariate context. This study examined parental alcohol use at two developmental periods, birth and adolescence, in relation to adolescent alcohol use and young adult alcohol abuse, accounting for individual (childhood externalizing), family (contextual risk), and peer (peer deviance) risk influences.

Method: Secondary analyses of data from the 1986 Northern Finland Birth Cohort study were conducted. Participants were 6,963 individuals born in Finland. Multi-informant (parent, teacher, youth), multi-method (surveys, population registers) data were collected at birth, in childhood (age 8), in adolescence (age 16), and in young adulthood (up to age 28). In terms of the primary variables, parental alcohol use was measured at birth and in adolescence via parent report. Adolescent alcohol use was measured via self-report, whereas indicators of young adult alcohol abuse were assessed using hospital and criminal records. Structural equation modeling analyses were conducted in Mplus.

Results: Father’s alcohol use had distal (birth: b=.050, B=.12, p<.05) and proximal (adolescence: b=.020, B=.09, p<.05) associations with adolescent alcohol use, whereas mother’s alcohol use was only proximally related (b=.014, B=.06, p<.05) to teen drinking. Parent alcohol use in adolescence was related to young adult alcohol abuse indirectly through adolescent alcohol use, which was a strong proximal predictor of alcohol abuse (b=.586, B=.50, p<.05). Both family contextual risk at birth (b=.065, B=.08, p<.05) and childhood externalizing (b=.513, B=.15, p<.05) predicted alcohol abuse over and above alcohol use. Peer deviance was strongly related to alcohol use (b=.565, B=.74, p<.05).

Conclusions: Findings suggest that early and ongoing screening for parental alcohol use, especially that of fathers, could help identify youth at risk for adolescent alcohol use and progression to alcohol abuse. Likewise, early and sustained multi-component, ecological interventions are needed to reduce youth’s risk for alcohol use and abuse.