Social, economic and family factors associated with binge drinking in Spanish adolescents

The potential adverse effects of minors' exposure to alcohol-related stimuli via licenced venues: A narrative review

ISSUES

Young people are particularly impressionable when it comes to forming expectations and attitudes around alcohol consumption. Any stimuli that normalise and foster positive expectations around alcohol use may increase the risk of underage alcohol consumption. Alcohol venues that market themselves as being appropriate 'family friendly' establishments for children risk exposing minors to environments that are saturated with alcohol-related stimuli. However, research examining how exposure to licenced venues affects underage people is very limited. The aim of this narrative review was to identify and synthesise relevant evidence to better understand how attending these venues might affect minors.

APPROACH

A narrative review of research published between January 2016 and November 2022 was conducted to investigate the potential effects on underage people of exposure to licenced venues and stimuli encountered in/around these venues. Examined stimuli included alcohol advertising, people consuming alcohol and alcohol outlets.

KEY FINDINGS

The reviewed literature indicates that the risk of alcohol-related harm among minors is likely to increase with greater exposure to alcohol venues due to the associated exposure to alcohol advertising, exposure to others consuming alcohol and higher outlet density. In combination, these factors are likely to normalise alcohol consumption for minors and create positive alcohol expectancies.

IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION

Venues serving alcohol should be discouraged from targeting families and parents should be warned about the risks associated with taking minors to venues where alcohol is sold and consumed.

Binge drinking and suicidal ideation in Peruvian adolescents: Evidence from a pooled cross-sectional survey

BACKGROUND

Binge drinking and suicidal ideation are public health problems that have consequences on the well-being of Peruvian adolescents. This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between binge drinking and suicidal ideation in Peruvian adolescents.

METHODS

A secondary data analysis of the health questionnaire of the Demographic and Family Health Surveys from 2013 to 2019 was performed. The outcome variable was suicidal ideation in the last 14 days, assessed with one of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) questions, while the independent variable was binge drinking in the last 30 days. Generalized linear models of the Poisson family with logarithmic link (crude and adjusted) were used to assess the association of interest.

RESULTS

Data from a total of 11,609 participants were analyzed. The pooled prevalence of suicidal ideation was 8.5 % (95 % confidence interval [CI]: 7.8-9.2), and that of binge drinking was 5.8 % (95 % CI: 5.2-6.5). An association was found between binge drinking and suicidal ideation in the adjusted analysis (adjusted prevalence ratio: 2.95; 95 % CI: 1.69-3.09).

LIMITATIONS

The cross-sectional design of the study does not allow for establishing a causal relationship.

CONCLUSIONS

Between 2013 and 2019, nine out of every 100 Peruvian adolescents had suicidal ideation, and six out of every 100 adolescents had binge drinking. An association was found between both risk behaviors in Peruvian adolescents.

Intergenerational transmission of parental risky health behaviors in Chinese children: Are there socioeconomic status differences?

Background

Risky health behaviors in childhood, including smoking, alcohol consumption, and having a poor diet, are the major sources of non-communicable diseases in adulthood. This study aimed to examine how parents affect children's risky health behaviors and whether intergenerational transmission differs based on socioeconomic status (SES).

Methods

Data were extracted from the 1991-2015 China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS). Smoking (n = 5,946), alcohol consumption (n = 7,821), and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) consumption (n = 3,537) were used as proxies for risky health behaviors in children. A binary choice model for panel data with a random-effect specification was employed to examine whether risky health behaviors can be transmitted from parents to their children. Subsequently, we conducted a seemingly unrelated estimation test (SUEST) to explore the differences in parental transmission between the different SES groups.

Results

We found strong intergenerational persistence of smoking, alcohol drinking, and SSBs drinking behaviors, except for the mothers' smoking behavior. Mothers had a greater influence on children's alcohol drinking and SSBs drinking behaviors than fathers both in urban and rural areas and in different SES groups. The intergenerational transmission of SSBs drinking behavior exhibited a decreasing trend with increasing SES for both urban and rural families. In urban areas, mothers' alcohol drinking behavior has a decreasing trend with increasing education level, occupation, and income; however, in rural areas, the influence of mothers' alcohol drinking behavior occurred in the same direction with increasing education level and occupation type. In rural areas, the influence of fathers' drinking and smoking behaviors on children appears to mostly increase with increasing SES. Meanwhile, the influence of such behaviors among urban fathers would decrease with increasing SES.

Conclusion

Parents' behaviors and SES can influence the initiation of risky health behaviors in their offspring. Thus, to promote healthy behaviors, policymakers can introduce health education programs for parents, particularly for those living in rural areas and with a low SES.

Is There an Association between Being a Victim of Physical Violence by Intimate Partner and Binge Drinking in Men and Women? Secondary Analysis of a National Study, Peru 2020

The relationship between being a victim of physical violence by an intimate partner and binge drinking (BD) is a poorly explored line of research, especially in men. To determine the association between being a victim of physical violence by an intimate partner and BD in men and women in Peru in 2020, a secondary analytical cross-sectional study was conducted using the Demographic Health Survey. BD was categorized according to the Center of Disease Control definition for men and women, based on the type and amount of alcoholic beverage ingested. Physical violence was based the report of being hit with any part of the body or an object, by their intimate partner. To identify the association, a multivariable general linear model of the family and link log Poisson was used. The results were presented as prevalence ratios (PRs). In the adjusted models stratified by sex, a 90% greater likelihood of BD was found in male victims and an 80% higher probability among female victims (PRa 1.9, 95%CI 1.3;2.7, p < 0.001 vs. PRa 1.8, CI95% 1.1; 2.8, p = 0.013, respectively). An association was found between physical violence by an intimate partner and BD in the Peruvian population older than 15 years, in both men and women.

Alcohol use and family-related factors among Spanish university students: the unHicos project

Background

During adolescence and youth there are relevant changes in the consolidation, gain or loss of consumption habits and lifestyles and the family factors has a fundamental role to development these habits. The study of the consumption of toxins, such as alcohol intake, is crucial at this stage due to the repercussions that said consumption presents in adulthood. Therefore, the objective of our study was to evaluate the associations between alcohol consumption patterns and related family factors (family functioning, family history of alcohol consumption) in Spanish university students.

Methods

Observational, descriptive, cross-sectional, multicenter study, carried out in first-year university students from 11 Spanish universities. Through an online questionnaire, alcohol consumption (risky consumption and intensive consumption or binge drinking), family functioning and history of alcohol in the family were evaluated.

Risky alcohol consumption and binge drinking were assessed using the AUDIT test, and family functioning was assessed using the family APGAR questionnaire. A descriptive analysis of the data was performed, as well as the Chi-Square test and Student's T-Test, and non-conditional logistic regression models were carried out to examine this association.

Results

The prevalence of risky alcohol consumption identified in the 10,167 respondents was 16.9% (95% CI = 16.2–17.6), and that of BD was 48.8% (95% CI = 47.9–48.8). There is a significant association between risky alcohol consumption and family functioning in students of both sexes, with greater consumption in the face of severe dysfunctional support (men OR = 1.72; p < 0.001 and women OR = 1.74; p < 0.001) and family history of consumption (p = 0.005). Regarding the binge drinking pattern, no statistically significant differences were observed.

Conclusions

Risky alcohol consumption in university students is associated with dysfunctional family support, unlike the binge drinking pattern, where there is no such association.

The findings of this study show the importance of creating prevention programs focused on the family approach in university students, which include alcohol screening in the population with a family history of this substance, and greater social support from health services.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-022-13900-8.

Using Geovisualization Tools to Examine Attitudes towards Alcohol Exposure in Urban Environments: A Pilot Study in Madrid, Spain

Pervasiveness of alcohol products and their promotion in the urban landscape may normalize alcohol consumption. This study aims to utilize geovisualization-based methods to assess attitudes towards different levels of alcohol exposure in the urban environment. We selected a typical downtown location, Lavapiés Square in Madrid, Spain, to conduct our study. First, we designed and created realistic 3D models simulating three different urban scenes with varying degrees of exposure to alcohol in the environment. Second, we used a survey on 159 adults to explore the level of acceptance of, attitudes towards, and perceptions of alcohol exposure in each scene. Participants reported a higher level of comfort in the scene with null alcohol exposure compared with the other scenes (p < 0.001). Acceptance towards alcohol exposure decreased as the level of alcohol elements increased in the scenes (p < 0.01). Acceptance also decreased when children were present in the scenes (p < 0.01). This study demonstrated that geovisualization tools provide a useful and well-suited approach to analyze perceptions of the alcohol environment. The use of geovisualization can help understand attitudes and perceptions towards the alcohol environment and may offer a way to simulate different scenarios prior to development or retrofitting.

Alcohol binge drinking in adolescence and psychological profile: Can the preclinical model crack the chicken-or-egg question?

During adolescence, internal and external factors contribute to engaging with alcohol binge drinking (ABD), putting at risk the neurodevelopment of brain regions crucial for emotional control and stress coping. This research assessed the prevalence of ABD in late adolescent students of Southern Italy and characterized their psychological profile and drinking motives. Translational effects of alcohol binge drinking in the animal model were also studied. Seven hundred and fifty-nine high school students of both sexes (aged 18-20) were recruited. Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test-Consumption (AUDIT-C), Drinking Motives Questionnaire-Revised Short Form, Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-Third Ed., State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, and Basic Self-Esteem Scale identified alcohol habits, drinking motives, and psychopathological profile. Eighty-five percentage of the students drank alcohol and 28% of them engaged in ABD; AUDIT-C correlated with enhancement, coping, and conformity motives. ABD was related to a greater likelihood of presenting clinical syndromes and personality disorders, as well as low resilience and self-esteem. Thereafter, in the pre-clinical model, adolescent male rats were exposed to alcohol (3.5 g/kg) in an intermittent binge-like paradigm and tested during prolonged abstinence. Rats were evaluated for anxiety-like behavior, motivated behaviors, resilience, and stress response following a psychosocial challenge. Binge-like alcohol-exposed adolescent rats displayed high integrated z-score for social- and novelty-induced anxiety, altered motivation-driven output, decreased resilience, and a blunted HPA axis response to psychosocial stress, with respect to respective controls. Our data confirm that ABD is the chosen pattern of drinking in a significant percentage of high school students in Southern Italy, and highlights AUDIT-C score as a relevant parameter able to predict the occurrence of affective disturbances. The evidence from the preclinical model shows that ABD produces detrimental consequences in the adolescent rat brain, resulting in negative affect, emotional dysregulation, and aberrant stress response, pointing to decreasing excessive alcohol drinking as a primary goal for the global act for brain health.

Addictions in Spanish College Students in Confinement Times: Preventive and Social Perspective

Diverse studies have shown that a significant percentage of the Spanish university population suffers from different addictions. They are both a personal and public health problem if there is not a greater awareness of the risks involved and if the appropriate prevention measures are not taken, among them educational ones. In this context, a descriptive and explanatory cross-sectional study was conducted during the first half of June 2020, coinciding with the period of confinement that occurred in Spain during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Given that this is such an exceptional time, the main objective of this study was to obtain information especially on students’ substance consumption and possible addictions at this time. Knowing the specific situation of this problem in that specific situation may allow for comparative studies in the future. The sample was composed of 310 university students from 14 Spanish universities. The instrument used in the research was the ASSIST questionnaire, developed by the WHO for the detection of alcohol, tobacco, and substance consumption. As result, a moderate and high risk was observed mainly in the following substances: alcohol (36.2%), tobacco (33.2%), cannabis (22.9%), and sedatives (10.3%). Through the logistic regression of the set of drugs, it has been proven that, on the one hand, the addiction to cocaine and sedatives in the family environment and age, on the other hand, are the main predictive variables of drug consumption. The existence of polysubstance abuse was also determined. These data show the need for educational bodies and university institutions to promote awareness, sensitization, and health education programs to deal with this important problem, especially in extraordinary situations, such as the one referred to, which could increase this consumption.