Peer effects on risky behaviors: new evidence from college roommate assignments

Predictors of hookup behaviors among Asian and Asian American college students in the United States

Objective: With the rapid growth in the population of Asian and Asian American college students in the United States, there is a need for research examining their participation in potentially risky sexual behaviors in order to expand understanding of this group's needs. This study focused on attachment orientation and hookup motives as predictors of hookup behaviors, which involve engaging in sexual behaviors without expectation of a long-term relationship.Methods: Participants included 169 Asian or Asian American college students ranging in age from 18 to 27 years who completed an online survey.Results: Results indicated that over half of participants reported engaging in hookup behaviors. The strongest predictors of hookup behaviors were increased age, liberal sexual attitudes, motivations to achieve excitement/sexual enhancement, and motivations to find a long-term partner. However, attachment orientations did not predict hookup behaviors. Results provide insight into a profile of Asian American college students increasingly exploring sexuality throughout young adulthood.

Dynamic social network analysis of a brief alcohol intervention trial in heavy-drinking college students shows spillover effects

BACKGROUND

Heavy-drinking college students tend to have close social networks, and there is theoretical and empirical support for the idea that behavior change can spread through those networks via close ties. The objective of this research was to determine whether intervention-induced behavior change in a subset of heavy drinkers in a sociometric (whole) college class-year social network is transmitted to other heavy drinkers in the network, resulting in reduced behavioral risk and change in network ties.

METHODS

We conducted a controlled trial in which most of a first-year college class (N = 1236; 56.9% female) was enrolled, with alcohol use and social network ties measured early in each of three semesters. Following a baseline assessment, the network was divided into two groups, brief motivational intervention (BMI) and natural history control (NHC) according to dormitory residence location. A subset of heavy drinkers in each group was selected, and those in the BMI group received an in-person intervention.

RESULTS

Using stochastic actor-oriented modeling, we found a significant tendency for participants in the BMI group to shed ties with individuals with similar drinking behaviors between the first and second semesters, relative to the NHC group. Furthermore, heavy drinkers with reciprocal ties to intervention recipients in the BMI group showed a significant reduction in drinks per week.

CONCLUSIONS

Individual alcohol interventions appear to have effects both on behavior and network connections among individuals who did not receive the intervention. Continued research is needed to identify the optimal conditions for the diffusion of behavior change.

Peer effects on organizational commitment: Evidence from military cadets

The commitment of soldiers to the military is essential because it could lead to increased morale, motivation and retention. Despite the accumulation of knowledge about predictors of organizational commitment (OC), efforts to investigate environmental factors influencing OC are in their infancy. We note that individuals shape their attitudes toward the environment based on information obtained from their surroundings, and we investigate peer effects on OC using data from a natural experiment of randomly-assigned military academy roommates. A total of 400 cadets (Sex ratio: 93.5% male, Age: 21.13 ± 1.43 years) from 136 living quarters participated in this quantitative study. In both self- and roommate-reports, we found that the average affective commitment (AC), continuance commitment (CC), and normative commitment (NC) of roommates in a living quarter can still predict AC, CC, and NC of the remaining individual in that same living quarter, respectively, even after controlling for the personal predictors of that remaining individual. Additionally, in self-report, we discovered that when there is a high heterogeneity in AC among roommates within a living quarter, the AC of the remaining individual in that living quarter tends to be higher, even after controlling for the personal predictors of that remaining individual. These findings provide initial evidence that attempting to assign soldiers with low OC to the same living quarters as those with high OC may be worthwhile.

Malleability of Alcohol Consumption: Evidence from Migrants

How malleable is alcohol consumption? Specifically, how much is alcohol consumption driven by the current environment versus individual characteristics? To answer this question, we analyze changes in alcohol purchases when consumers move from one state to another in the United States. We find that if a household moves to a state with a higher (lower) average alcohol purchases than the origin state, the household is likely to increase (decrease) its alcohol purchases right after the move. The current environment explains about two-thirds of the differences in alcohol purchases. The adjustment takes place both on the extensive and intensive margins.

Higher education and health at midlife: Evaluating the role of college quality

Using the longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-1979 linked with external data on college characteristics (N = 7056), this study illustrates an independent stratifying role of college quality in shaping health. College quality has significant and positive influences on physical health, and this positive association tends to strengthen across 40 and 50. By contrast, attending higher-quality colleges is not associated with mental health at either age 40 or age 50. Decompositions were conducted to assess the extent to which early life and demographic characteristics, employment and economic conditions, health behaviors, and family relationships account for observed patterns. Our study highlights the necessity for future research on education and health to incorporate characteristics of schools attended; reveals variation in the college quality-health nexus by specific health outcomes; and provides new insights into understanding health inequalities across the life course.

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This study illustrates an independent stratifying role of college quality in shaping health.

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College quality has significant and positive influences on physical health, and this positive association tends to strengthen across 40 and 50.

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Attending higher-quality colleges is not associated with mental health at either age 40 or age 50.

The mediating role of impulsivity in the associations between child maltreatment types and past month substance use

BACKGROUND

Child maltreatment has emerged as an important risk factor for substance use. However, despite evidence consistently demonstrating that substance use peaks during emerging adulthood, less is known about the specificity of maltreatment effects on substance use during this critical developmental period. Further, the factors that might play a role in these associations are not well understood.

OBJECTIVE

The current study examined the associations between child maltreatment types (i.e., physical abuse, physical neglect, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and emotional neglect) and past month marijuana, alcohol, and tobacco use among emerging adults, and tested whether impulsivity accounted for these associations.

METHODS

Participants were 500 emerging adults ranging in age between 18 and 25 years old (M = 18.96, SD = 1.22, 49.6% male) recruited from a large, public university in the Midwest United States.

RESULTS

Tests of indirect effects suggested that impulsivity accounted for associations between emotional abuse and past month marijuana, alcohol, and tobacco use.

CONCLUSIONS

Current findings provide support for impulsivity as a mechanism linking childhood emotional abuse to substance use among emerging adults, highlighting the need for targeted screening and intervention.

The long-term health effects of initiating smoking in adolescence: Evidence from a national longitudinal survey

We estimate the long-term effect of initiating smoking in adolescence on a range of health outcomes later in life. We use the second wave (1996) and the fifth wave (2016-2018) of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) and estimate instrumental variables models with school-level fixed effects, where the instruments are the average rate of smoking among friends and the respondents' perceptions about their friends' smoking. We find that smoking in adolescence has a negative impact on 15 of the 28 self-reported, diagnosed, and self-identified health outcomes approximately 20 years later.

EDUCATION AND INCOME GRADIENTS IN LONGEVITY: THE ROLE OF POLICY

Education and income are strong predictors of health and longevity. In the last 20 years many efforts have been made to understand if these relationships are causal and what the possible role of policy should be as a result. The evidence from various studies is ambiguous: the effects of education and income policies on health are heterogeneous and vary over time, and across places and populations. I discuss explanations for these disparate results and suggest directions for future research.

The influence of endogenous behaviors among social pairs: Social interaction effects of smoking

We model the observed smoking outcomes of an individual and her social contact - a spouse, friend, sibling, parent or adult child - as a simultaneous move game with complete information. We allow an individual's smoking behavior to depend on her previous behavior and carefully account for observed and unobserved heterogeneity. Our econometric model addresses simultaneity, homophily, health endogeneity, non-random attrition, and multiplicity of equilibria together. Using network data from the Framingham Heart Study, we find smaller social interaction effects among spouses and friends than Christakis and Fowler (2008) who pioneered such exploration with these data. We also find that social interaction impacts of the endogenous behaviors of siblings or a parent and an adult child are not statistically significant after disentangling them from homophily. In addition, we find that the effects of social contacts' cardiovascular disease shocks on individual smoking behavior are not statistically significant.

Higher Viral Load Drives Infrequent Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Transmission Between Asymptomatic Residence Hall Roommates

BACKGROUND

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic spread to >200 countries in <6 months. To understand coronavirus spread, determining transmission rate and defining factors that increase transmission risk are essential. Most cases are asymptomatic, but people with asymptomatic infection have viral loads indistinguishable from those in symptomatic people, and they do transmit severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). However, asymptomatic cases are often undetected.

METHODS

Given high residence hall student density, the University of Colorado Boulder established a mandatory weekly screening test program. We analyzed longitudinal data from 6408 students and identified 116 likely transmission events in which a second roommate tested positive within 14 days of the index roommate.

RESULTS

Although the infection rate was lower in single-occupancy rooms (10%) than in multiple-occupancy rooms (19%), interroommate transmission occurred only about 20% of the time. Cases were usually asymptomatic at the time of detection. Notably, individuals who likely transmitted had an average viral load approximately 6.5-fold higher than individuals who did not (mean quantification cycle [Cq], 26.2 vs 28.9). Although students with diagnosed SARS-CoV-2 infection moved to isolation rooms, there was no difference in time to isolation between cases with or without interroommate transmission.

CONCLUSIONS

This analysis argues that interroommate transmission occurs infrequently in residence halls and provides strong correlative evidence that viral load is proportional to transmission probability.

Is Health Contagious?-Based on Empirical Evidence From China Family Panel Studies' Data

This study empirically analysed the contagion of health using data from China Family Panel Studies. We first controlled variables related to health behaviour, medical conditions, individual characteristics, household characteristics, group characteristics, and prefecture/county characteristics and then employed multiple methods for estimation. The estimates showed that the average health level of others in the community had a significant positive effect on individual self-rated health-health was contagious. The measurement results remained robust after the endogeneity of the core explanatory variables was controlled using two-stage least squares. Furthermore, by analysing the heterogeneity of health contagion, we found that the contagion effect of health varied with the level of medical care, household affiliation, gender, rural/urban areas, and age groups. The contagion effect of health was more pronounced in the elderly population and the rural areas of the central region, where the level of medical care is relatively low, whereas it did not differ significantly between genders. Finally, the learning or imitation mechanism and social interaction mechanism of health contagion were examined.

Social and Non-social Brain Areas in Risk Behaviour: The Role of Social Context

The human brain contains social areas that become active when interacting with another human. These are located in the ventral prefrontal and mediodorsal cortices, adjacent to areas involved in reward processing and cognitive control. Human behaviour is strongly influenced by the social context. This is particularly evident when observing greater risk propensity in the presence of a peer, particularly during adolescence and emerging adulthood. We explored the widely held view that enhanced risk propensity is the consequence of weak cognitive control. We used brain activity, estimated from EEG recordings in a sample of 114 emerging adult dyads whilst performing a risk perception task, to predict risk behaviour in a subsequent driving simulation task. Being with a peer reduced the ability to discriminate riskiness in images of traffic scenes, biased responses towards the perception of no-risk, and increased the rate of accidents in the driving simulation. Risk perception involved three sets of clusters showing activity only when being with a peer, only when being alone, and in both social contexts. Functional connectivity between the clusters accounted for the later driving simulation performance depending on the peer's presence. In the light of our findings, greater risk-taking, when a peer is present, seems to be triggered by the activation of a different, less efficient brain network for risk-processing.

The Werther effect of celebrity suicides: Evidence from South Korea

Since 2003 Korea has experienced the highest suicide rate among OECD countries. One of the societal risk factors that triggers suicide is the contagious nature of suicide. This paper empirically examines the effect of celebrity suicide reports on subsequent copycat suicides, using daily suicide data and information of highly publicized suicide stories in Korea from 2005 to 2018. The findings from the Poisson regression model suggest that the number of public suicides soars after media reports on celebrity suicides. On average, the number of suicides in the population increased by 16.4% within just one day after the reports. Further analysis reveals that female and younger subgroups are more likely to be affected by celebrity suicides. Moreover, the public reacts more strongly to suicide incidents of celebrities of the same gender and even imitates the methods of suicide used by celebrities. This paper highlights the significance of careful and responsible media coverage of suicide stories to prevent copycat suicide. For policymakers, it is crucial to implement regulations not only for traditional media but also for new media where younger people can freely access unfiltered information.

Relative age for grade and adolescent risky health behavior

This paper uses Danish register data to examine the effect of relative age for grade on women's risky health behavior. I exploit an administrative rule that creates a discontinuous jump in relative age for grade for children born around January 1. Being young-for-grade leads to a higher probability of an abortion and alcohol poisoning in adolescence and earlier births, cohabitation and contraceptive use. The results show how relative age for grade is a determinant of adolescent women's risky sex and heavy drinking. For men, being young-for-grade have no effect on alcohol poisonings, fatherhood and cohabitation.

College roommates have a modest but significant influence on each other's political ideology

Understanding the relationship between college and political ideology is of increasing importance in the United States in the context of intense partisan polarization. Leveraging a quasi-experiment and a panel survey, we find no evidence that a sample of students moves leftward along the political spectrum during the first year of college. However, we find strong evidence of a causal effect of roommates: Students move toward their randomly assigned roommates’ political ideology over the course of their first year of college. Our study identifies causal evidence of social network effects for political views and identifies these causal effects for college students specifically. Our findings are inconsistent with claims that college makes students more liberal.

Does college change students’ political preferences? While existing research has documented associations between college education and political views, it remains unclear whether these associations reflect a causal relationship. We address this gap in previous research by analyzing a quasi-experiment in which university students are assigned to live together as roommates. While we find little evidence that college students as a whole become more liberal over time, we do find strong evidence of peer effects, in which students’ political views become more in line with the views of their roommates over time. This effect is strongest for conservative students. These findings shed light on the role of higher education in an era of political polarization.

Drug Checking and Its Potential Impact on Substance Use

OBJECTIVES

Drug checking as a tool for harm reduction is offered in certain cities throughout Europe, the USA, and Australia, but in general, it is internationally still scarcely available and controversially discussed. This study aimed at investigating the potential impact of a drug-checking offer on Berlin nightlife attendees' illicit drug use and at identifying the encouraging and discouraging factors for using or refraining from such an offer.

METHODS

Using an online questionnaire, we conducted a cross-sectional survey in a Berlin party scene. A total of 719 people participated in the survey that took part in 2019.

RESULTS

The vast majority of participants (92%) stated that they would use drug checking, if existent. If the test revealed the sample to contain a high amount of active ingredient, 91% indicated to take less of the substance than usual. Two-thirds (66%) would discharge the sample if it contained an unexpected/unwanted agent along with the intended substance. If the sample contained only unexpected/unwanted substances and not the intended substance at all, 93% stated to discharge the sample. Additional brief counseling was stated to be useful. Participants showed a comparatively high substance use.

CONCLUSIONS

Drug checking as a harm reduction tool was highly accepted in the scene, and the majority of participants stated to align their consumption behavior accordingly, in a reasonable manner. A concomitant consultation would be appreciated, which may be used to direct educational information about harms and risks to users.

Peer influence on obesity: Evidence from a natural experiment of a gene-environment interaction

The role of peers in explaining the obesity epidemic is difficult to evaluate, largely due to selection (the tendency of similar individuals to make friends with each other). Our study addresses this selection issue by using data from a natural experiment of randomly assigned college roommates. We investigate whether and how peers, gender, and the FTO gene interactively influenced BMI. We find that women with a weight-prone version of the gene were about three pounds lighter if assigned frequently-exercising roommates than if assigned non-frequently-exercising roommates. However, living with frequently-exercising roommates had little impact for women without the weight-prone version of the gene or for men regardless of genotype. We find that individuals with the weight-prone version of the gene exercised more often when assigned frequently-exercising roommates. This might be a mechanism through which the effect of frequently-exercising roommates worked.

Drinking, smoking and type a polydrug behaviours: Psychosocial factors among Portuguese university students

Aim

This paper aims to describe alcohol, tobacco and type A polydrug consumption among university students.

Method

A cross-sectional study was performed. Through a convenience sampling, a total of 338 were included (51.8% male with a mean age of 20.6 years, SD = 3.4). Data was collected using a self-reported questionnaire. The questionnaire was composed by sociodemographic and substance consumption and behaviours variables. Spearman's correlation coefficients were assessed to measure the strength and direction of the association between sociodemographic and substance consumption variables. To evaluate type A polydrug consumption, multivariate logistic regression models were performed.

Results

It was observed significant correlations between tobacco consumption with cannabis and alcohol involvement, and coping, conformity, social, enhancement drinking motives. About alcohol consumption, there were observed relations with students’ social environment, and with enhancement, conformity and social drinking motives. Regarding sociodemographic factors on type A polydrug consumption it was verified that students who have parents and friends who smoke are more likely to polydrug.

Conclusion

Findings suggest that interventions focused on substance consumption may need to address descriptive and injunctive norms, drinking motives and social environment as part of the student’s consumption behaviours.

The company you keep: health behavior among work peers

There is widespread agreement that behavior crucially influences one's health. However, little is known about what actually determines health-related behavior. We explore the impact of the place where many people spend most of their time, at work, and analyze whether an individual's decision to participate in health screening is related to the observed behavior of peers at work. We use linked employer-employee data and exploit the transitions of workers to new jobs. We find that the health behavior of co-workers highly correlated. A comparison of individuals moving into new firms shows that participation in general health checks, mammography screening, and prostate-specific antigen tests increases with the share of work peers attending these screenings. To differentiate between peer effects and common influences at the workplace, we further separate the peer groups within firms and show that workers with similar characteristics tend to have a stronger effect on individual screening participation.

Influence of the residential environment on undergraduate students' health

University campuses represent an opportunity to advance the understanding of how the built environment influences health. We used de-identified billing codes from a private university clinic serving undergraduate students for academic years 2008 through 2012 linked to students' residential history and demographic information. We used a two-stage, hierarchical regression model to study the differences in the reported prevalence of diagnostic groups by dorm and the association between building characteristics and disease incidence rates. We found significant differences in the prevalence of mental health (MH), upper respiratory infections (URI) and substance abuse between freshmen and upperclassmen. In addition, we found systematic differences in the relative rates of URI and MH diagnoses across dorms. Among upperclasmen dorms, the only mechanically ventilated building had a lower rate of allergy cases. An increase in available dorm space of 100 ft² per student was associated to a decrease in 10.8 URI cases per 100 students per academic year (p < 0.01). Construction age was also associated with lower incidence rate of MH (1.1 fewer diagnoses/100 students-academic year for every 25-year increment in building age, p = 0.04). These results suggest the potential for the use of electronic health records (EHR) to identify differential health issues faced by students depending on the housing characteristics and on the stages of their academic career.

Alcohol and tobacco consumption associated factors among college students: A review

Aim

Alcohol and tobacco consumption, common among college students, may lead to future health and social problems. We aim to identify the factors associated with those consumptions among college students.

Method

A literature review was performed using PRISMA recommendations. Records were selected through PubMed and Scopus. Through inclusion and exclusion criteria, data from the selected studies were analysed through meta-syntheses.

Results

Twenty studies were included in the analysis. Tobacco consumption was associated with having smoker friends, sedentary behaviours and male sex. Drinking was associated with having parents/friends who drink, having smoker friends and male sex.

Conclusion

This review contributes to identify the consumption factors, allowing health care workers to develop and improve the effectiveness of possible interventions for this population, such as health education programs or psycho-educational interventions, aiming to decrease consumptions behaviours, by targeting the students who are at risk.

Boundary violations and adolescent drinking: Observational evidence that symbolic boundaries moderate social influence

Scholars of social influence can benefit from attending to symbolic boundaries. A common and influential way to understand symbolic boundaries is as widely shared understandings of what types of behaviors, tastes, and opinions are appropriate for different kinds of people. Scholars following this understanding have mostly focused on how people judge others and how symbolic boundaries align with and thus reproduce social differences. Although this work has been impressive, I argue that it might miss important ways in which symbolic boundaries become effective in everyday social life. I therefore develop an understanding of how symbolic boundaries affect people's ideas and decisions about themselves and their own behavior. Based on this, I argue that focusing on boundary violations-that is, what happens if people express opinions or enact behavior that contravenes what is considered (in)appropriate for people like them-might offer an important way to understand how symbolic boundaries initiate and shape cultural and social change. Using data from Add Health, I demonstrate the utility of this line of argument and show that boundary violations play an important role in channeling social influence. Conservative/Evangelical Protestants and to a lesser degree Catholics, but not Mainline Protestants are highly influenced by the drinking of co-religionists. I consider the implications for cultural sociology.

Tobacco-21 laws and young adult smoking: quasi-experimental evidence

AIMS

To estimate the impact of tobacco-21 laws on smoking among young adults who are likely to smoke, and consider potential social multiplier effects. Design Quasi-experimental, observational study using new 2016-17 survey data.

SETTING

United States.

PARTICIPANTS/CASES

A total of 1869 18-22-year-olds who have tried a combustible or electronic cigarette.

INTERVENTION AND COMPARATORS

Tobacco-21 laws raise the minimum legal sales age of cigarettes to 21 years. Logistic regressions compared the association between tobacco-21 laws and smoking among 18-20-year-olds with that for 21-22-year-olds. The older age group served as a comparison group that was not bound by these restrictions, but could have been affected by correlated factors. Age 16 peer and parental tobacco use were considered as potential moderators.

MEASUREMENTS

Self-reported recent smoking (past 30-day smoking) and current established smoking (recent smoking and life-time consumption of at least 100 cigarettes).

FINDINGS

Exposure to tobacco-21 laws yielded a 39% reduction in the odds of both recent smoking [odds ratio (OR) = 0.61; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.42, 0.89] and current established smoking (OR = 0.61; 95% CI = 0.39, 0.97) among 18-20-year-olds who had ever tried cigarettes. This association exceeded the policy's relationship with smoking among 21-22-year-olds. For current established smoking, the tobacco-21 reduction was amplified among those whose closest friends at age 16 used cigarettes (OR = 0.50; 95% CI = 0.29, 0.87), consistent with peer effects moderating the policy's impact on young adult smoking.

CONCLUSIONS

Tobacco-21 laws appear to reduce smoking among 18-20-year-olds who have ever tried cigarettes.

Risky Behaviors and Sensation-Seeking in Adolescence: A Descriptive Correlational Study

Risky behaviors are common in developing countries, especially in adolescence. Moreover, sensation seeking is an important factor in personality. This study was conducted to evaluate the relationship between risky behaviors and sensation-seeking in a sample of Iranian adolescents. This study used a cross-sectional method with 400 high school adolescents (age between 15 and 21 years old) in Kashan city from multistage random sampling. The research instrument consisted of three parts: a socio-demographic questionnaire, the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) and the Zuckerman Sensation-Seeking Scale-V (SSS-V). Data analysis was performed using the t-test, ANOVA, chi-square, regression and Spearman correlation coefficient in SPSS v 11.5. Risky behaviors were found in 51.2% of students, and a significant difference was found between the male and female students in this regard (p < .021). The overall sensation-seeking score and the scores in the dimensions of experience seeking, disinhibition, and boredom susceptibility were higher in males than females (p < .0001). All dimensions of sensation-seeking other than disinhibition dimension could significantly predict risky behavior. Sensation seeking can be used as an indicator for screening risky behaviors. Detailed planning on the part of the health care system and public authorities is recommended for appropriate screening and counseling adolescents with risky behaviors.

'Higher education' - substance use among Berlin college students

Berlin is internationally known for its intense nightlife associated with high rates of psychoactive substance use. Previous studies conducted in other cities indicated college students as a group at high risk for substance (mis-)use that was associated with individual psychological and cognitive impairments as well as lower academic performance. The aim of this study was to provide detailed data about the substance use patterns of Berlin college students. In addition, major protective and risk factors were analysed. An online questionnaire assessing sociodemographic data and various relevant aspects of both legal and illegal substance use such as consumption pattern and frequency as well as risk-taking behaviour was developed and distributed among colleges in Berlin. A sample of 9351 participants from 17 different colleges in Berlin completed the questionnaire. The study revealed high lifetime (69.3%), past year (45.9%) and past month (28.3%) prevalence of illicit substance use in the sample. Daily tobacco-smoking, a mental disorder diagnosis, a positive screening for problematic consumption (Cage-AID), bisexual orientation and living in open relationship were main factors positively associated with the prevalence and the extent of illicit substance use. Students in Berlin appear to show higher rates of illicit substance use than was previously reported for age-matched individuals in the general German population and college students in other cities. Thus, they are a relevant target group for early prevention and intervention concerning substance use and abuse.

Vaped, Not Stirred: Vaporized Alcohol Knowledge, Use, and Susceptibility

Background: Vaporized alcohol is an alternative method of ingesting alcohol that has received significant attention in the press. However, research on vaporized alcohol to date is limited. Objectives: The current study sought to assess vaporized alcohol knowledge, use, and future susceptibility in diverse sample of young adults in the Southwest United States. Method: A cross-sectional survey design was used to assess perception and use of vaporized alcohol in a sample of 986 young adults in college gathered in 2015 and 2016. Results: Overall, 26% of participants had heard of vaporized alcohol, 1.7% had used vaporized alcohol, and 33.5% were susceptible to future vaporized alcohol use. Contrary to our hypothesis, heavy drinkers were not more likely to have tried vaporized alcohol. Further, there were no significant differences in vaporized alcohol use across any sociodemographic groups. Conclusions/Importance: Ever use of vaporized alcohol was low, which was generally consistent with prior research, debunking media reports that vaporized alcohol is a widespread problem. However, ongoing monitoring of this method of alcohol ingestions appears warranted, especially with different populations (i.e., adolescents, and young adults not in college) where no empirical research has been published to date.

Personal Income and Substance Use among Emerging Adults in the United States

BACKGROUND

Taxation and other policy measures have been implemented across the United States to curb the accessibility of substance use, especially among youth. While the inverse relationship between price and youth consumption is well known, available research on youth earned income and substance use is sparser, particularly among emerging adults.

OBJECTIVES

We examined the association between emerging adult past-year personal income and 30-day substance use.

METHODS

We analyzed data from Wave 5 (n = 2,202) of the NEXT Generation Health Study, an annual survey study administered to a nationally representative sample of emerging adults in the U.S. Wave 5 (mean age = 20.28 years, SE = 0.02 years) was administered during the 2013-2014 academic year. After grouping participants into five levels of self-reported, pre-tax personal income, we used binomial logistic regression to examine the association between personal income and cigarette smoking, marijuana use, alcohol use, and heavy episodic drinking (HED).

RESULTS

In unadjusted models, those at certain levels of higher past-year income were more likely to smoke cigarettes, consume alcohol, or engage in HED at least once in the past 30 days. Several associations remained significant after controlling for covariates. Most associations were no longer significant after including perceived peer norms as additional covariates. Personal income was not associated with 30-day marijuana use in unadjusted or adjusted models. Conclusions/Importance: Higher earned income may provide emerging adults greater economic access to cigarettes and alcohol, but the association might be partly attenuated by social factors, particularly perceived peer norms.

The Role of Ego Networks in Compulsive Exercise Behavior Among a Sample of College Sorority Women

Background: Compulsive exercise (CE) is a harmful form of exercise that elevates the risk of developing/sustaining clinical eating disorders. College-aged sorority women are especially prone to CE. Due to the pronounced impact social relationships have on college students’ behavior, this study aims to examine personal networks and CE among a sample of sorority women through an egocentric network analysis.Methods: A total of 204 women in a sorority from a large, private university in the southeastern United States completed a cross-sectional survey in spring 2015. Descriptive and regression analyses were conducted on demographic, attribute, and ego network data.Results: Relationships with siblings, significant others, and roommates were protective against CE in this sample. Conversely, body dissatisfaction and exercise frequency predicted CE.Conclusions: Findings suggest that social relationships can impact CE behaviors in this sample. Along with promoting body satisfaction and healthy exercise, public health efforts should focus on facilitating close interpersonal relationships, especially between sorority women and siblings, significant others, and roommates.

Estimating the effects of friends on health behaviors of adolescents

This paper estimates the effects of friends' smoking and drinking on own behavior while controlling for correlated unobservables between friends. The effect of friends' behaviors is identified by comparing similar individuals who have similar friendship opportunities and make similar friendship choices, exploiting the idea that friendship choice reveals information about unobservables. We combine this identification strategy with an across-cohort within school design so that identification arises in our reduced form estimates from across-grade differences in the clustering of health behaviors. Finally, we use estimated information on correlated unobservables to examine longitudinal data on the onset of health behaviors, where the likelihood of reverse causality should be minimal. We find evidence that this strategy produces somewhat smaller (no more than 16% smaller) friendship effect estimates than the more standard school fixed effect models consistent with at most modest bias from correlated unobservables.

Prospective Associations of Actual and Perceived Descriptive Norms with Drinking Among Emerging Adults

BACKGROUND

Descriptive norms are commonly associated with participant drinking. However, study participants may incorrectly perceive that their peers drink about the same amount as they do, which would bias estimates of drinking homogeneity.

OBJECTIVES

This research examined the magnitude of associations between emerging adults' reports of their own drinking and peer drinking measured the previous year by measures of (1) participants' perceptions of friends' drinking; and (2) actual drinking reported by nominated peers.

METHODS

The data are from annual surveys conducted in 2014 and 2015, Waves 4 and 5 (the first 2 years after high school) of 7 annual assessments as part of the NEXT Generation Health Study (n = 323). Associations of participant alcohol use with perceived friend use (five closest, closest male, and closest female friends), and with actual peer use. Logistic regression analyses estimated the magnitudes of prospective associations between each measure of peer drinking at W4 and participant drinking at W5.

Relationships Between Perceived Family Gambling and Peer Gambling and Adolescent Problem Gambling and Binge-Drinking

The study systematically examined the relative relationships between perceived family and peer gambling and adolescent at-risk/problem gambling and binge-drinking. It also determined the likelihood of at-risk/problem gambling and binge-drinking as a function of the number of different social groups with perceived gambling. A multi-site high-school survey assessed gambling, alcohol use, presence of perceived excessive peer gambling (peer excess-PE), and family gambling prompting concern (family concern-FC) in 2750 high-school students. Adolescents were separately stratified into: (1) low-risk, at-risk, and problem/pathological gambling groups; and, (2) non-binge-drinking, low-frequency-binge-drinking, and high-frequency-binge-drinking groups. Multinomial logistic regression showed that relative to each other, FC and PE were associated with greater likelihoods of at-risk and problem/pathological gambling. However, only FC was associated with binge-drinking. Logistic regression revealed that adolescents who endorsed either FC or PE alone, compared to no endorsement, were more likely to have at-risk and problem/pathological gambling, relative to low-risk gambling. Adolescents who endorsed both FC and PE, compared to PE alone, were more likely to have problem/pathological gambling relative to low-risk and at-risk gambling. Relative to non-binge-drinking adolescents, those who endorsed both FC and PE were more likely to have low- and high-frequency-binge-drinking compared to FC alone or PE alone, respectively. Family and peer gambling individually contribute to adolescent at-risk/problem gambling and binge-drinking. Strategies that target adolescents as well as their closely affiliated family and peer members may be an important step towards prevention of harm-associated levels of gambling and alcohol use in youths.

Taking the hassle out of wellness: Do peers and health matter?

Despite substantial financial incentives provided by the Affordable Care Act and employers, employee enrollment in wellness programs is low. This paper studies enrollment in a wellness program offered along an employer-provided health insurance plan. Two factors are considered in the choice of health plan with wellness: the effect of peer choices and family health on plan choice. Using exclusively obtained data of health insurance plan choice and utilization, this paper compares similar plans and focuses on a subsample of new employees. Result show that peers affect own choice of health insurance: a 10 percentage point rise in the share of colleagues enrolled in Aetna Wellness increases the probability of own enrollment in the plan by up to 3.9 percentage points. This result suggests that lack of experience with a wellness program are key to employee reluctance to enroll. Health effect on probability of enrollment in Aetna Wellness ranges from a 3 percentage point decline to a 3 percentage point rise depending on the measure, suggesting that while wellness programs appeal to low- to medium-intensity users of medical services, they do not appeal to individuals with more severe medical conditions which might benefit most from better coordinated medical care.

Love Conquers all but Nicotine: Spousal Peer Effects on the Decision to Quit Smoking

If two partners smoke, their quit behavior may be related through correlation in unobserved individual characteristics and through common shocks. However, there may also be a causal effect whereby the quit behavior of one partner is affected by the quit decision of the other partner. If so, there is a spousal peer effect on the decision to quit smoking. We use data containing retrospective information of Dutch partnered individuals about their age of onset of smoking and their age of quitting smoking. We estimate mixed proportional hazard models of starting rates and quit rates of smoking in which we allow unobserved heterogeneity to be correlated across partners. Using a timing of events approach, we determine whether the quitting-to-smoke decision of one partner has a causal effect on the quitting-to-smoke decision of the other partner. We find no evidence of substantial spousal peer effects in the decision to quit smoking. Apparently, love conquers all but nicotine addiction. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Causal Spousal Health Spillover Effects and Implications for Program Evaluation

Current methods of cost effectiveness analysis implicitly assume zero spillovers among social ties. This can underestimate the benefits of health interventions and misallocate resources toward interventions with lower comprehensive effects. We discuss the implications of social spillovers for program evaluation and document the first evidence of causal spillovers of health behaviors between spouses by leveraging experimental data from the Lung Health Study (smoking) and COMBINE Study (drinking). We find large decreases in spousal substance use from treatments with a therapy component, which reduces the incremental cost effectiveness ratios of some treatments by 12 to 18 percent.

Binge drinking: Health impact, prevalence, correlates and interventions

OBJECTIVE

Binge drinking (also called heavy episodic drinking, risky single-occasion drinking etc.) is a major public health problem. This paper provides an overview of recently published evidence concerning the definition and measurement, prevalence rates, health impact, demographic and psychosocial correlates of, and interventions for, binge drinking.

DESIGN

Narrative review.

RESULTS

Mostly occurring among young people at weekends, binge drinking increases the risk of both acute (e.g. injuries) and long-term negative consequences (e.g. alcohol disorders). Binge drinkers tend to be extrovert, impulsive and sensation-seeking. Stress, anxiety, traumatic events and depression are also related to binge drinking. Both alcohol-related behaviour of parents and general parenting (e.g. parenting styles, monitoring) are also important. Other major risk factors for binge drinking are frequently spending time with friends who drink, and the drinking norms observed in the wider social environment (e.g. school, community, culture). Emergency departments, birthday parties, fraternities and the workplace serve as settings for interventions; these are increasingly delivered via digital and mobile technology. There is evidence of small-sized effects across approaches (brief interventions, personalised normative feedback, protective behavioural strategies etc.) and populations.

CONCLUSION

A more consistent terminology, investigating multi-level influences and identifying the most effective intervention components are challenges for future research.

Social causation and neighborhood selection underlie associations of neighborhood factors with illicit drug-using social networks and illicit drug use among adults relocated from public housing

Theories of social causation and social influence, which posit that neighborhood and social network characteristics are distal causes of substance use, are frequently used to interpret associations among neighborhood characteristics, social network characteristics and substance use. These associations are also hypothesized to result from selection processes, in which substance use determines where people live and who they interact with. The potential for these competing selection mechanisms to co-occur has been underexplored among adults. This study utilizes path analysis to determine the paths that relate census tract characteristics (e.g., economic deprivation), social network characteristics (i.e., having ≥ 1 illicit drug-using network member) and illicit drug use, among 172 African American adults relocated from public housing in Atlanta, Georgia and followed from 2009 to 2014 (7 waves). Individual and network-level characteristics were captured using surveys. Census tract characteristics were created using administrative data. Waves 1 (pre-relocation), 2 (1st wave post-relocation), and 7 were analyzed. When controlling for individual-level sociodemographic factors, residing in census tracts with prior economic disadvantage was significantly associated with illicit drug use at wave 1; illicit drug use at wave 1 was significantly associated with living in economically-disadvantaged census tracts at wave 2; and violent crime at wave 2 was associated with illicit drug-using social network members at wave 7. Findings from this study support theories that describe social causation and neighborhood selection processes as explaining relationships of neighborhood characteristics with illicit drug use and illicit drug-using social networks. Policies that improve local economic and social conditions of neighborhoods may discourage substance use. Future studies should further identify the barriers that prevent substance users from obtaining housing in less disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Alcohol consumption by youth: Peers, parents, or prices?

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent to Adult Health, we estimate the effect of peers' alcohol consumption and alcohol prices on the drinking habits of high-school-age youth. We use the two-stage residual inclusion method to account for the endogeneity of peer drinking in nonlinear models. For our sample of high school students, we find that peer effects are statistically and economically significant regarding the choice to participate in drinking but are not significant for the frequency of drinking, including binge drinking. Regarding alcohol prices, even though we have good price variation in our sample, alcohol prices are not found to be significant. The results are important for policymakers who are considering policies to reduce underage drinking, as we conclude that no significant impact on underage drinking will result from low-tax states' increasing excise taxes on alcohol so they are similar to those of high-tax states. Policymakers may choose to focus instead on the influence of peers and changing the social norm behavior.

A study exploring factors of decision to text while walking among college students based on Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB)

OBJECTIVE

This study attempted to identify critical predictors of intention to both send and read texts while walking based on Theory of Planned Behavior in order to provide resources for practitioners and campaign designers to inform college students of the perils of texting while walking and dissuade them from such a risky behavior.

PARTICIPANTS

Three hundred twenty-nine college students were recruited from a large public university in the Southwest in September 2014.

METHODS

This study used a cross-sectional survey design.

RESULTS

Subjective norm (sending: B = .17, p = .02; reading: B = .17, p = .04), personal norms (sending: B = -.32, p = .001, reading: B = -.35, p = .001), and self-efficacy (sending: B = -.27, p = .001; reading: B = -.24, p = .001) were significant predictors of intention to both send and read text messages while walking.

CONCLUSIONS

For students who have greater intention of texting while walking, persuasive communication should utilize normative influence and self-efficacy to discourage texting while walking.

Peer Influence on Aggressive Behavior, Smoking, and Sexual Behavior: A Study of Randomly-assigned College Roommates

Identifying casual peer influence is a long-standing challenge to social scientists. Using data from a natural experiment of randomly-assigned college roommates (N = 2,059), which removes the threat of friend selection, we investigate peer effects on aggressive behavior, smoking, and concurrent sexual partnering. The findings suggest that the magnitude and direction of peer influence depend on predisposition, gender, and the nature of the behavior. Peer effects on individuals predisposed toward a given behavior tend to be larger than peer effects on individuals without such a predisposition. We find that the influence of roommates on aggressive behavior is more pronounced among male students than among female students; roommate effects on smoking are negative among female students and male students who did not smoke before college. For concurrent sexual partnering, a highly private behavior, we find no evidence of peer effects.

Escalating risk and the moderating effect of resistance to peer influence on the P200 and feedback-related negativity

Young people frequently socialize together in contexts that encourage risky decision making, pointing to a need for research into how susceptibility to peer influence is related to individual differences in the neural processing of decisions during sequentially escalating risk. We applied a novel analytic approach to analyze EEG activity from college-going students while they completed the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART), a well-established risk-taking propensity assessment. By modeling outcome-processing-related changes in the P200 and feedback-related negativity (FRN) sequentially within each BART trial as a function of pump order as an index of increasing risk, our results suggest that analyzing the BART in a progressive fashion may provide valuable new insights into the temporal neurophysiological dynamics of risk taking. Our results showed that a P200, localized to the left caudate nucleus, and an FRN, localized to the left dACC, were positively correlated with the level of risk taking and reward. Furthermore, consistent with our hypotheses, the rate of change in the FRN was higher among college students with greater self-reported resistance to peer influence.

The effects of merit-based financial aid on drinking in college

We study the effect of state-level merit aid programs (such as Georgia's HOPE scholarship) on alcohol consumption among college students. Such programs have the potential to affect drinking through a combination of channels--such as raising students' disposable income and increasing the incentive to maintain a high GPA--that could theoretically raise or lower alcohol use. We find that the presence of a merit-aid program in one's state generally leads to an overall increase in (heavy) drinking. This effect is concentrated among men, students with lower parental education, older students, and students with high college GPA's. Our findings are robust to several alternative empirical specifications including event-study analyses by year of program adoption. Furthermore, no difference in high-school drinking is observed for students attending college in states with merit-aid programs.

The Affordable Care Act permits greater financial rewards for weight loss: a good idea in principle, but many practical concerns remain

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) increased the maximum rewards that group health insurance plans (including employers who self-insure) may offer in their wellness programs, with the goal of incentivizing healthy behaviors such as weight loss among the obese and smoking cessation. In this essay, I describe the history and intention of such programs, and make the following three points: (1) In principle, incentivizing healthy behavior can reduce external costs and help people with time-inconsistent preferences stick to their resolutions; (2) there are problems with the design of this portion of the ACA that will limit its effectiveness in achieving these goals; and (3) financial rewards for healthy behaviors have a mixed record to date, and thus many practical design features need to be resolved to improve the effectiveness of such programs.