Abstract
The aim of the present study was to investigate the association between longitudinal registry-based data on family income during childhood and self-reported substance use in adolescence, including potential alcohol- or drug problems. Data from the Norwegian population-based youth@hordaland-survey was employed, and the analyzed included n = 8,983 adolescents aged 16–19 years. This information was linked to registry-based information about childhood family income for seven consecutive years prior to adolescents’ participation in the youth@hordaland-survey. Latent class analyses (LCA) were used to examine associations between patterns of family economic circumstances in childhood and subsequent substance use in adolescence. Based on the LCA, we identified four distinct patterns of family economic circumstances: a ‘never poor’ (89.3%) group, followed by two groups characterized by moving in (3.0%) or out (4.6%) of poverty, and a final ‘chronically poor’ (3.1%) group. Several findings were of interest: the chronically poor reported less daily snus use, fewer had tried alcohol, were less likely to report frequent intoxication, and less prone to have potential alcohol- or drug-related problems compared to all other groups. They were also less likely to have tried any illicit drug compared to those moving in or out of poverty. Finally, the chronically poor reported more daily smoking than the never poor group, but less daily smoking than the moving out of poverty group. The never poor group was less likely to have tried any illicit drugs compared to the groups moving into or out of poverty, and less likely to smoke daily compared to the moving out of poverty group. In other words, the present study somewhat surprisingly suggested lower substance use among the chronically poor adolescents compared to other adolescents on several of the measures of substance use.
Highlights
Adolescence is an important transitional period for future health – for both the individual, and generations to come (Sawyer et al, 2012; Patton et al, 2016), and a period where many health-related behaviors are established (World Health Organization [WHO], 2018)
The never poor group was less likely to have tried any illicit drugs compared to the groups moving into or out of poverty, and less likely to smoke daily compared to the moving out of poverty group
The present findings indicate that there are important differences in substance use and potential problems among adolescents based on family income trajectories during childhood
Summary
Adolescence is an important transitional period for future health – for both the individual, and generations to come (Sawyer et al, 2012; Patton et al, 2016), and a period where many health-related behaviors are established (World Health Organization [WHO], 2018). Numerous studies have investigated the association between different SES indicators and the use of alcohol and other substances during adolescence and young adulthood (Humensky, 2010; Patrick et al, 2012; Finch et al, 2013; Kendler et al, 2014; Latvala et al, 2014; Lui et al, 2015; Pedersen et al, 2015; Charitonidi et al, 2016; Non et al, 2016; Gomes de Matos et al, 2017; Jang et al, 2017; Pape et al, 2017, 2018; Lee et al, 2018) The nature of this association is complex, and the link seems to be dependent on both how SES is measured and operationalized, the substance in question, the type of use, and the participating adolescents’ age (Ensminger et al, 2000; Boyce et al, 2006; Currie et al, 2008; Kendler et al, 2014; Charitonidi et al, 2016; Pape et al, 2018). They found that associations between low SES and different alcohol-behavior outcomes varied, where the strongest association was found for deviant and harmful drinking compared to alcohol use per se (Pape et al, 2018)
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