Commentary on Rossow et al. (2016): Early days yet in the cycle from peer to parent drinking as influences on adolescent alcohol involvement.

Rossow et al. ’s systematic review highlights the fact that we know less than we thought about the role of parent drinking in the etiology of teen drinking. Further research is needed to clarify both the aspects of parent drinking that impact later drinking by adolescent offspring as well as the mediators and moderators of this relation.

Progressive elaboration and cross-validation of a latent class typology of adolescent alcohol involvement in a national sample.

Objective: Most studies of adolescent drinking focus on single alcohol use behaviors (e.g., high-volume drinking, drunkenness) and ignore the patterning of adolescents' involvement across multiple alcohol behaviors.

Antecedent predictors of children's initiation of sipping/tasting alcohol.

Background: Sipping or tasting alcohol is one of the earliest alcohol-use behaviors in which young children engage, yet there is relatively little research on this behavior. Previous cross-sectional analyses determined that child sipping or tasting is associated with the child's attitude toward sipping and with a family environment supportive of alcohol use, but not with variables reflecting psychosocial proneness for problem behavior as formulated in Problem Behavior Theory (Jessor and Jessor, Problem Behavior and Psychosocial Development: A Longitudinal Study of Youth, 1977, Academic Press, New York). This study extended these analyses longitudinally to identify antecedent predictors of the childhood initiation of sipping or tasting alcohol in a multiwave study.

Types of alcohol use experience from childhood through adolescence.

Purpose: There have been few reports of the development of alcohol involvement from childhood through adolescence. We examined the ages at which children first sipped or tasted alcohol, drank, had three or more drinks in a row, had five or more drinks in a row, were drunk, or had alcohol problems, to describe the types of drinking experience exhibited at each age from 8.5 through 18.

The burden of alcohol use: focus on children and preadolescents.

The study of alcohol use by children ages 12 and younger has been very limited. This article summarizes information from U.S.

Racial differences in the development of impulsivity and sensation seeking from childhood into adolescence and their relation to alcohol use.

Background: Pronounced differences in drinking behavior exist between African Americans and European Americans. Disinhibited personality characteristics are widely studied risk factors for alcohol use outcomes. Longitudinal studies of children have not examined racial differences in these characteristics and in their rates of change or whether these changes differentially relate to adolescent alcohol use.

Drinking frequency as a brief screen for adolescent alcohol problems.

Objective: Routine alcohol screening of adolescents in pediatric settings is recommended, and could be facilitated by a very brief empirically validated alcohol screen based on alcohol consumption. This study used national sample data to test the screening performance of 3 alcohol consumption items (ie, frequency of use in the past year, quantity per occasion, frequency of heavy episodic drinking) in identifying youth with alcohol-related problems.

Methods: Data were from youth aged 12 to 18 participating in the annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health from 2000 to 2007.

Childhood risk factors for early-onset drinking.

Objective: There is relatively little research on the childhood antecedent predictors of early-onset alcohol use. This study examined an array of psychosocial variables assessed at age 10 and reflecting Problem Behavior Theory as potential antecedent risk factors for the initiation of alcohol use at age 14 or younger.

Method: A sample of 452 children (238 girls) ages 8 or 10 and their families was drawn from Allegheny County, PA, using targeted-age directory sampling and random-digit dialing procedures.

Parent-child divergence in the development of alcohol use norms from middle childhood into middle adolescence.

Objective: Despite the importance of alcohol use norms as predictors of adolescent and college drinking, there has been little research on their development from childhood into adolescence. This study used parental and child beliefs regarding the acceptability of sipping, drinking, and drunkenness for children ages 8-16 years to establish age norms for these alcohol use behaviors and examined differences in the growth of these norms between parents and children.

Method: Data were collected as part of an ongoing cohort-sequential longitudinal study of 452 families with children initially 8 or 10 years old followed over 10 waves covering the age span from age 8 to age 16 years.

Familial loading for alcoholism and offspring behavior: mediating and moderating influences.

Background: Familial loading for alcoholism is an important marker of risk for early-onset alcohol problems, but the early expression of this risk in community samples of children is understudied.

Methods: This study tested, for 452 8- and 10-year-old children, whether the density of alcohol problems in their biological relatives was associated with externalizing behaviors that are risk factors for later alcohol problems.

Results: Density of alcohol problems in first- and second-degree biological relatives was associated with behavioral disinhibition (BD; e.

Concordance of adolescent reports of friend alcohol use, smoking, and deviant behavior as predicted by quality of relationship and demographic variables.

Objective: The strongest predictor of adolescent alcohol use is affiliation with friends who drink, use other drugs, or engage in deviant behavior. Most studies measure this variable using adolescent perceptions of friend problem behavior, but some research suggests these perceptions may be inaccurate. The current study's objective was to determine the concordance between adolescent perceptions of their friend's drinking, smoking, and deviant behavior and the friend's self-report.

Alcohol outcome expectancies as socially shared and socialized beliefs.

Alcohol expectancies are important predictors of alcohol involvement in both adolescents and adults, yet little research has examined the social origins and transmission of these beliefs. This paper examined alcohol outcome expectancies collected in a cohort-sequential longitudinal study of 452 families with children followed over seven waves. Children completed interviews every 6 months, and parents completed interviews annually.

Estimated blood alcohol concentrations for child and adolescent drinking and their implications for screening instruments.

Objective: Blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) in children after consumption of different numbers of standard drinks of alcohol have not been estimated previously. The goal was to determine the number of drinks at each age that led to a BAC of > or =80 mg/dL, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism criterion for binge drinking.

Methods: The updated Widmark equation to estimate BAC was modified to take account of the differing body composition (total body water) and accelerated rates of ethanol elimination of children.

Developmental processes and mechanisms: ages 0-10.

Little information is available on alcohol use in children up to age 10, although rates appear to be low. This age-group is not without risk, however. In fact, numerous nonspecific and specific risk factors for subsequent alcohol use are prevalent in childhood.

Brief screens for detecting alcohol use disorder among 18-20 year old young adults in emergency departments: Comparing AUDIT-C, CRAFFT, RAPS4-QF, FAST, RUFT-Cut, and DSM-IV 2-Item Scale.

Background: This study compared six of the briefest screening instruments for detecting DSM-IV-defined Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) among older adolescents treated in Emergency Departments (ED).

Methods: The AUDIT-C, the RAPS4-QF, the FAST, the CRAFFT, the RUFT-Cut, and 2-Items from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV of the American Psychiatric Association [American Psychiatric Association (1994). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders, (1994) (DSM-IV).

Risk factors for young adult substance use among women who were teenage mothers.

Teenage mothers may not "mature out" of substance use during young adulthood, and this non-normative trajectory of use may contribute to negative outcomes for teenage mothers and their offspring. Pregnant teenagers (age range=12-18 years; 68% Black) were recruited from a prenatal clinic and interviewed about their substance use, and subsequently re-interviewed six and ten years later (n=292). Consistent with the literature, early tobacco and marijuana use were risk factors for young adult use.

Early developmental processes and the continuity of risk for underage drinking and problem drinking.

Developmental pathways to underage drinking emerge before the second decade of life. Many scientists, however, as well as the general public, continue to focus on proximal influences surrounding the initiation of drinking in adolescence, such as social, behavioral, and genetic variables related to availability and ease of acquisition of the drug, social reinforcement for its use, and individual differences in drug responses. In the past 20 years, a considerable body of evidence has accumulated on the early (often much earlier than the time of the first drink) predictors and pathways of youthful alcohol use and abuse.

Children's introduction to alcohol use: sips and tastes.

Background: Sipping or tasting alcohol is one of the earliest alcohol use behaviors in which young children engage, yet there is relatively little research on this behavior. The present research describes the prevalence of sipping or tasting in a community sample of children, examines the sociodemographic correlates and social contexts of this behavior, and tests whether variables reflecting psychosocial problem-behavior proneness, that predict adolescent drinking, account for this behavior.

Methods: A sample of 452 children (238 girls) aged 8 or 10 and their families was drawn from Allegheny County PA using targeted-age directory sampling and random digit dialing procedures.

Really underage drinkers: the epidemiology of children's alcohol use in the United States.

Little attention has been paid to alcohol use by children aged 12 and younger. The present article summarizes findings on the prevalence of alcohol use from US national and statewide surveys of children in grades 6 and younger based on reports located in searches of the literature and the Internet. Four national surveys and seven statewide surveys of children's alcohol and drug use were located that present rates of lifetime sipping and tasting, lifetime experience of more than a sip, alcohol use in the past year, use in the past month, and use in the past week.

Road rage and collision involvement.

Objectives: To assess the contribution of road rage victimization and perpetration to collision involvement.

Methods: The relationship between self-reported collision involvement and road rage victimization and perpetration was examined, based on telephone interviews with a representative sample of 4897 Ontario adult drivers interviewed between 2002 and 2004.

Results: Perpetrators and victims of both any road rage and serious road rage had a significantly higher risk of collision involvement than did those without road rage experience.

Alcohol and violence: comparison of the psychosocial correlates of adolescent involvement in alcohol-related physical fighting versus other physical fighting.

This study examined the demographic and psychosocial correlates of alcohol-related physical fighting and other physical fighting to determine if the predictors for aggressive behaviors are similar or different when alcohol is involved. Analyses were based on the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health which is a nationally representative school based sample of adolescents in grades 7 through 12 (N=18,924). The current analyses were restricted to current drinkers who could be grouped into three categories of involvement in physical fights (n=8866): no fighting; fighting not related to alcohol use; fighting related to alcohol use.

Alcohol use disorder symptoms and risk-taking behavior as predictors of alcohol-related medical events among young adults treated in emergency departments.

Background: Studies of alcohol-positive patients in emergency departments are not clear on the relationship between alcohol use disorder (AUD) symptoms and risk for injury.

Method: Two-hundred three young adults (118 males (58%); mean age = 19.4 years) who were treated in two Level-1 emergency departments (ED) received comprehensive psychiatric interviews and completed the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and the Cognitive Appraisal of Risky Events (CARE).

Predictors of fighting attributed to alcohol use among adolescent drinkers.

This study examined demographic and psychosocial factors to determine the predictors of fighting attributed to alcohol use among adolescent drinkers. Analyses were based on the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health which is a nationally representative sample of adolescents in Grades 7 through 11. The prospective analyses were restricted to those adolescent drinkers who participated in both data waves (n=6041) collected in 1995 and 1996.

Adolescent alcohol initiation: a review of psychosocial risk factors.

Longitudinal research studies focused on alcohol use initiation in adolescence were reviewed to determine which variables function as antecedent predictors or risk factors. Only studies that focused on time-1 abstainers were included. Classes of risk factors examined include sociodemographic, family, peer, personality, and behavioral variables.