Religiousness as a predictor of alcohol use in high school students

Public religiosity, religious importance, and substance use among Latino emerging adults

OBJECTIVE

This study examined the relationship between religiosity (religious importance and public religion) and substance use (binge drinking and marijuana use) among Latino emerging adults.

METHOD

Study utilized data (N = 2,442; 51.9% male) from wave 3 of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health).

RESULTS

Only public religion was found to be a protective factor for both binge drinking and marijuana use.

CONCLUSION

The study results suggest the potential for public forms of religion, such as attendance to services and activities, to act as a protective factor for substance use.

Religiosity and substance use among Asian American college students: moderated effects of race and acculturation

BACKGROUND

Religiosity is a well-established protective factor against substance use among Caucasians, but limited research has examined its role among Asian Americans. The purposes of this study were (1) to examine whether the associations between religiosity and substance use outcomes differed across Caucasians and Asian Americans, and (2) to test whether acculturation moderated the associations between religiosity and substance use outcomes among Asian Americans.

METHOD

We utilized a large and diverse cross-sectional sample of 839 college students to test whether race moderated the associations between religiosity and substance use outcomes (Study 1). We then replicated and extended our findings in a separate college sample of 340 Asian Americans, and examined the moderating role of acculturation on the associations between religiosity and substance use outcomes (Study 2).

RESULTS

Controlling for age, gender, and paternal education, religiosity was protective against alcohol use, alcohol problems, and marijuana use among Caucasians but was unrelated to these outcomes among Asian Americans in Study 1. In Study 2, religiosity was protective against alcohol problems only at high levels of acculturation. Moreover, religiosity was protective against marijuana use at both high and mean levels of acculturation, but not at low levels of acculturation.

CONCLUSIONS

The protective effects of religiosity on alcohol use and problems varied across Caucasian and Asian American college students, and religiosity protected against alcohol problems and marijuana use only among more acculturated Asian Americans. These findings underscore the need to examine culturally-specific correlates of substance use outcomes among Asian Americans.

Acculturation Style and Alcohol Use Among African American College Students

This study examined whether a relationship exists between acculturation and alcohol use among African American college students and if the relationship varies by religiosity and gender. Most researchers use unidimensional African American acculturation measures that cannot capture the construct’s complexity; this study is the first to use a bidimensional measure. Results revealed a relationship between acculturation and alcohol use. Less frequent drinking occurred among marginalists (those who reject both African and Eurocentric U.S. culture), while assimilationists (those who reject African culture in favor of Eurocentric U.S. culture) drank more frequently. Religiosity and gender also significantly influenced the nature of the relationship.

The Religious Context of Parenting, Family Processes, and Alcohol use in Early Adolescence

Personal religiosity has been identified as a protective factor against adolescent use and misuse of alcohol. Less is known about the influence of the religious context of parenting on the drinking behavior of adolescents. This study addresses this gap by investigating how religious context of parenting is related to marital relationship, parenting practice, child-parent bonding, and alcohol use and misuse in early adolescence. Through a structural equation modeling analysis of the data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, this study finds that the religious context of parenting is negatively related to prevalence of alcohol use, frequency of alcohol consumption, and frequency of heavy drinking among early adolescents. In addition to its direct effect on adolescent drinking behavior, religious context of parenting appears to inhibit alcohol use and misuse indirectly by decreasing interparental conflict and increasing effective parenting and child-parent relationship.

Family Religious Involvement, Parenting Practices and Academic Performance in Adolescents

This project investigated the impacts of family religious involvement and family religious affiliations on parenting practices and academic performance. This study utilized data from the base-year and first follow-up of the Education Longitudinal Study: 2002/2004 (ELS). A series of statistical techniques were incorporated to examine the nature of the overall associations. The results revealed that parents' religious involvement with their children is related to their parenting practices and their children's academic performance, but this link is mediated by the parents' religious affiliation. Significant associations among religious involvement, parenting practices for family socialization and academic performance suggest that a higher level of family religious participation indicates a level of social impact on education that leads to better academic performance. Implications for researchers and parents were discussed.

A Systematic Review of Recent Literature on Religiosity and Substance Use

This paper contains a systematic review of articles about the relationship between religiosity/spirituality and alcohol and drug use that were published between 1997 and 2006. Summaries of methodological characteristics (e.g., study design, sample size and composition, specific dimensions of religiosity, and substances investigated) and general findings of 105 studies provide an overview of the field. The association between religiosity/spirituality and reduced risk of substance use is well established, but a well defined body of knowledge on this relationship has been slow to emerge. The development of more sophisticated instrumentation to measure religiosity and spirituality, the investigation of samples that include users of major drugs of abuse, and the integration of the study of religion and drug use into the broader literature on religion and health can help the field build upon the considerable work that has been published.

The role of religiosity in influencing adolescent and adult alcohol use in Trinidad

This study examined the role of religiosity among adolescents' and adults' alcohol use in Trinidad. A stratified random sample design of 369 adolescents and 210 adult parents belonging to the various religious groups in Trinidad was employed. Participants were randomly selected from various educational districts across Trinidad. Adolescent respondents completed a demographic questionnaire and the Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory-A2 (SASSI-A2). Adult participants completed a similar demographic questionnaire and questions taken from the SASSI-A2 that related to alcohol use. MANOVA analyses revealed significant main effects for adolescents' and adults' alcohol use as it relates to religious affiliation and frequency of religious service attendance. It is hoped that these findings will assist health educators in the formulation of intervention programs in Trinidad.

Alcohol expectancies and drinking behaviors in Mexican American college students

Research with non-Latinos has shown that alcohol expectancies ("the anticipated effects of alcohol use") are associated with drinking behaviors; however, prior studies have not fully examined such relations in Latino college students. This investigation examines positive alcohol expectancies and their association with contextual drinking and alcohol-related problem behaviors in a sample of 107 Mexican American college students (mean age=25; 54% female) who completed self-report surveys. Results showed that students who endorsed expectancies of physical and social pleasure and increased social assertiveness were likely to engage in frequent heavy drinking and imbibe in less personal settings. Furthermore, gender (being male) and the expectancy of enhanced sexual performance and experience were associated with involvement in risk behaviors due to drinking. This study highlights the link between specific alcohol expectancies and alcohol-related problem behaviors in Mexican American college students. Intervention approaches aimed at modifying drinking expectancies in physical, social, and sexual domains could prove useful in this population.

Longitudinal effects of age at onset and first drinking situations on problem drinking

The purpose of this study was to describe aspects of the first alcohol-use experience, and examine the predictive relations among age of first use, context of alcohol use initiation, and problem drinking with and without controls for psychosocial risk factors. Data were from the Rutgers Health and Human Development Project, a five-wave, prospective study of substance-use behaviors in a community sample. Respondents, who were first interviewed at age 12 (1979-81) and most recently at age 30 or 31 (1999-2000) (N=371), reported on their first drinking experience, and on a range of known risk factors for alcohol abuse. Most alcohol initiation occurred during a family gathering. Regardless of initiation context, youth who drank at an early age were more likely than youth who initiated later to become problem drinkers, although the risk was relatively greater for the youth who first drank outside a family gathering. Based on multivariate logistic regressions, feeling drunk at initiation was the only onset-related variable significantly associated with problem drinking; other significant risks factors included male gender, delinquency, and family history of alcoholism. Because most initiation occurs at a family gathering, alcoholism prevention research may benefit from examining the role that drinking in family contexts could play with regard to socializing young drinkers to less risky drinking behaviors in adulthood. In particular, further research focusing on the subjective effects experienced by youth when they first drink may be merited.

Religious coping, drinking motivation, and sex

The relations for religious coping with types of drinking motivation were examined in 178 college students. Participants completed the Ways of Religious Coping Scale and the Drinking Motives Questionnaire. As expected, correlations suggested that amount of alcohol used as well as social and enhancement motives for using were negatively related to religious coping scores. These relations were more clearly evident among women than among men. Coping motivation for alcohol use and religious coping were not significantly correlated.