Parental socioeconomic status and binge drinking in adolescents: A systematic review

Abstract

These findings may inform healthcare systems in prevention and intervention for binge drinking among adolescents (Am J Addict 2016;25:610-619).

Binge drinking: Health impact, prevalence, correlates and interventions

“…Some studies found a link to frequent adolescent binge drinking (Elisaus et al, 2015;Huang, Ho, Wang, Lo, & Lam, 2016;Kendler et al, 2014;Melotti et al, 2013), while others did not (Steiner et al, 2014;Tucker et al, 2013), or found an inverse link (Legleye et al, 2013). Kwok and Yuan (2016) conclude from their recent literature review that in developing countries where parents tend to be poorer and less educated adolescents from affluent and educated families show more binge drinking whereas in developed countries the frequency of adolescent binge drinking depends more on the specific behaviours of parents and friends (see below).…”

Relative deprivation and episodes of drunkenness among French and Canadian adolescents

“…No clear pattern of associations was found in the previous literature between parental socio‐economic status, commonly characterised by material affluence and assessed by the family income or parental education and excessive alcohol consumption in adolescents . In the field of social inequalities, RD was presented as an alternative mechanism and indicates that social comparisons could induce psychosocial stress that can affect health and can also induce stress‐related behaviours such as alcohol consumption .…”

“…In our study, we hypothesised that adolescents who experienced greater RD are more likely to report drunkenness, but the findings do support this hypothesis. There is a growing literature suggesting that societal‐level factors may affect the relationship between parental socio‐economic status and adolescents' health and behaviours . At the country level, legal drinking age and ‘alcohol culture’ may be confounding factors, as well as alcohol advertising bans and policies .…”

“…Many studies have documented the potential relationship between the family socio‐economic background and heavy alcohol consumption in adolescence, reporting mixed findings . The theory of relative deprivation (RD) has emerged in the field of health inequality as an alternative mechanism to absolute deprivation (AD) (i.e.…”

Social inequality in youth violence: The role of heavy episodic drinking

“…The literature on SES and adolescent drinking is fairly sparse, and the findings are mixed, that is, both positive, negative and statistically insignificant associations between the two have been reported . Thus, only some studies indicate that youth drinking behaviour is elevated in low‐SES groups .…”