The Impact of Exposure and Perceived Disapproval of Underage Drinking

Abstract

The impact of adolescents' exposure to alcohol use and perceived disapproval of underage drinking on age of first alcohol use and subsequent frequency and level of alcohol use is examined using data from a cross-sectional, nationally representative sample. All respondents ages 12-20 were selected for analysis. Higher levels of exposure and lower levels of perceived disapproval were associated with lower age of onset, greater frequency of alcohol use, and higher levels of alcohol use among adolescents. Furthermore, the average age of onset of alcohol use for the entire sample was 13.8 years. These findings suggest that alcohol prevention should begin at a young age and should include educating parents and community members about the impact of their attitudes and behaviors toward alcohol use, as well as more traditional efforts, which concentrate on preventing alcohol use by targeting relationships with peers and friends.

Moderators of the Relationship between Religiosity and Alcohol Use in College Students

“…As predicted, the regression of private religiosity on alcohol use was significantly altered across levels of parent disapproval of alcohol use, although not in the way that we expected. Similar to past findings, students who were highly privately religious tended to drink less if parents disapproved of underage alcohol use (Blobaum & Anderson, 2006;Welte, Barnes, Hoffman, & Dintcheff, 1999;Wood et al, 2004), but also tended to drink more if parents approved of such behaviors. It is possible that students who are high in private religiosity feel more compelled to please their parents by complying with parental attitudes toward underage alcohol use, although this explanation has yet to be studied empirically.…”

A telephone survey of parental attitudes and behaviours regarding teenage drinking

“…American research has highlighted the counterproductive impact of such approaches [ 18 ]. Where the pervasive culture is highly tolerant of heavy drinking, as it is in Britain and Ireland, early drinking is linked to later alcohol abuse [ 8 , 22 ].…”

“…Parental alcohol use can influence adolescents' use, with greater parental alcohol use increasing the chance of early onset of alcohol use and subsequent unhealthy drinking patterns amongst adolescents [ 15 , 17 - 20 ]. There is good evidence that the establishment of clear alcohol specific rules leads to a delay in the onset of drinking [ 20 - 22 ]. Some researchers have cautioned that an extremely harsh authoritarian approach to teenage alcohol use may be counterproductive [ 23 ].…”

Alcohol Use as a Marker for Risky Sexual Behaviors and Biologically Confirmed Sexually Transmitted Infections Among Young Adult African-American Women

“…Previous studies also have assessed frequency of alcohol in this manner (Blobaum & Anderson, 2006; Morrison, et al, 1998). Alcohol use was categorized as women who consumed alcohol vs. women who abstained from alcohol.…”