Associations Between Positive Childhood Experiences and Adult Smoking and Alcohol Use Behaviors in a Large Statewide Sample.

Abstract

Childhood experiences are linked to myriad indices of health and wellbeing in adulthood, including substance use behaviors. Increasingly, there has been a paradigm shift in prevention science focused on healthy outcomes of positive experiences. The current study examined associations between retrospective reports of positive childhood experiences and patterns of smoking and alcohol use in adulthood. Data were from the 2019 Montana Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey (N = 6,495; Mage = 55.9years; 49% male as assigned at birth). Outcomes examined with regard to positive childhood experiences included lifetime smoking (> 100 cigarettes), current smoking status, and past-month alcohol use indices (i.e., total drinks, typical quantity, heavy episodic drinking, and peak drinking occasion). Positive childhood experience scores were inversely associated with both smoking outcomes (AORs = 0.66 and 0.61). Curiously, positive childhood experiences were positively associated with any past-month alcohol use (AOR = 1.12), but among respondents who did use alcohol in the past month, positive childhood experiences were inversely associated with all indices of alcohol use patterns: total drinks (CR = 0.94), drinks per occasion (CR = 0.95), heavy episodic occasions (AOR = 0.91), and peak drinking (AOR = 0.95). Findings generally indicated that positive childhood experiences may be protective against cigarette and high-risk alcohol use behaviors in adulthood. Item-by-item analyses identified specific childhood experiences that may be particularly protective, which may inform prevention efforts and policy (prevention recommendations are discussed below).