| | College
Attendance and Heavy Drinking in Young Adulthood
Principal
Investigator: M.J. Paschall, Ph.D.
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Epidemiological
and etiological studies suggest that college attendance increases
the likelihood of heavy drinking and related health and social
problems in young adulthood. However, the extent to which
the relationship between college attendance and heavy or problem
drinking is attributable to pre-existing factors in adolescence
(e.g., parent drinking and alcoholism, alcohol availability
at home, peer drinking) has not been examined with longitudinal
data from a national probability sample, leaving questions
about whether the apparent relationship between college attendance
and heavy or problem drinking is spurious. A number of social
contextual and individual factors measured in young adulthood
(e.g., adult roles and responsibilities, place of residence
and living arrangement, local availability of alcohol, peer
drinking, personality traits) also may help to explain the
relationship between college attendance and heavy or problem
drinking. This study also will examine racial/ethnic differences
in the relationship between college attendance and heavy or
problem drinking, as some research suggests that college attendance
increases the likelihood of alcohol misuse among whites, but
not African Americans. Finally, this study will assess and
attempt to explain differences in heavy or problem drinking
within young adult subgroups defined by college characteristics
and/or education level (e.g., undergraduates attending 4-year
versus 2-year institutions).
This study will utilize two waves of interview data collected
for the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add
Health). In-home interviews were conducted in 1995 will 20,745
adolescents and their parents and siblings, and these individuals
are being re-interviewed in young adulthood (2001-2002). The
Add Health study uses state-of-the-art audio computer-assisted
interviewing technology and provides GPS coordinates for contextual
analyses. This study will geocode alcohol outlet addresses
available from State ABC and local government offices, and
will link measures of local alcohol outlet density with addresses
of Add Health subjects to assess the explanatory value of
local alcohol availability measures. The Add Health study
provides a excellent opportunity to address important questions
about the relationship between college attendance and heavy
or problem drinking with longitudinal data from a large nationally
representative sample, and without the cost of initiating
a new prospective cohort study.
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