Causal influence of age at first drink on alcohol involvement in adulthood and its moderation by familial context.
- Authors
- Deutsch, Arielle R; Slutske, Wendy S; Richmond-Rakerd, Leah S; Chernyavskiy, Pavel; Heath, Andrew C; Martin, Nicholas G
- Year
- 2013
- Journal
- Journal of studies on alcohol and drugs
- PMID
- 23948529
- DOI
- 10.15288/jsad.2013.74.703
- PMCID
- PMC3749313
OBJECTIVE: Previous research has established a connection between early age at drinking initiation and greater alcohol involvement in adulthood, but it has not yet been established whether this is a causal effect. The current study used a multilevel discordant twin design to examine individual and contextual effects, and an interaction between these effects, of the age at drinking initiation on the frequency and quantity of drinking in adulthood. METHOD: Participants were 4,194 same-sex twins (2,264 monozygotic, 1,924 dizygotic; 2,270 women; Mage = 29.9 years) from the Australian Twin Registry who completed a telephone interview that included assessments of the age at alcohol use initiation and past-year frequency and quantity of alcohol use. Multilevel models were estimated using data from the full sample and using data from only monozygotic twins. Individual (within-twin-pair comparison) and family contextual (between-twin-pair comparison) effects were estimated. RESULTS: The age at first drink was related to the past-year frequency (r = -.16) and quantity of drinking (r = -.12) in young adulthood. Individual (causal) and family context effects of age at drinking onset predicted later adult drinking frequency and quantity. There was also a significant cross-level interaction between individual and family contexts for frequency but not quantity of drinking. CONCLUSIONS: Results of this study indicate a potential causal effect of age at drinking onset on adult alcohol involvement as well as the importance of examining both individual and contextual effects in discordant twin studies.
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In this knowledge base
| Title | Year | PMID |
|---|---|---|
| High Polygenic Risk Scores Are Associated With Early Age of Onset of Alcohol Use Disorder in Adolescents and Young Adults at Risk. | 2022 | 36324664 |
External
| Title | Authors | Journal | Year | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alcohol initiation before age 15 predicts earlier hazardous drinking: A survival analysis of a 7-year prospective longitudinal cohort of Australian adolescents. | Gardner LA et al. | — | 2024 | → |
| Early Drinking Onset and Subsequent Alcohol Use in Late Adolescence: a Longitudinal Study of Drinking Patterns. | Sjödin L et al. | — | 2024 | → |
| High Polygenic Risk Scores Are Associated With Early Age of Onset of Alcohol Use Disorder in Adolescents and Young Adults at Risk. | Nurnberger JI et al. | — | 2022 | → |
| Parietal P3 and midfrontal theta prospectively predict the development of adolescent alcohol use. | Harper J et al. | — | 2021 | → |
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| Development of Alcohol Use Disorder as a Function of Age, Severity, and Comorbidity with Externalizing and Internalizing Disorders in a Young Adult Cohort. | Nurnberger JI et al. | — | 2019 | → |
| Age at drinking onset, age at first intoxication, and delay to first intoxication: Assessing the concurrent validity of measures of drinking initiation with alcohol use and related problems. | Morean ME et al. | — | 2018 | → |
| Developmental Etiologies of Alcohol Use and Their Relations to Parent and Peer Influences Over Adolescence and Young Adulthood: A Genetically Informed Approach. | Deutsch AR et al. | — | 2017 | → |
| From alcohol initiation to tolerance to problems: Discordant twin modeling of a developmental process. | Deutsch AR et al. | — | 2017 | → |
| Is 'age at first drink' a useful concept in alcohol research and prevention? We doubt that. | Kuntsche E et al. | — | 2016 | → |
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| Test of a potential causal influence of earlier age of gambling initiation on gambling involvement and disorder: a multilevel discordant twin design. | Slutske WS et al. | — | 2014 | → |
| Using media exposure to predict the initiation and persistence of youth alcohol use in Taiwan. | Chang FC et al. | — | 2014 | → |