Tuesday, May 25, 2004

SPOTLIGHT: Teen drinking

Peer influence paramount

One major factor – the behaviour of friends – plays the biggest role in alcohol and drug use among young teens, according to a new report based on data from about 4,300 adolescents aged 12 to 15.

Two-thirds of adolescents who reported that all or most of their friends were using alcohol had, themselves, been drunk at least once.

Only 8% of those who reported having few or no friends who used alcohol had ever been drunk.

Similarly, four-fifths (82%) had smoked marijuana if most or all of their friends had done so, too. This compares with only 7% who didn’t have friends who used marijuana.

The study adds to evidence that peer behaviour is related to an adolescent’s own alcohol and drug use. However, it is not possible to determine a causal direction.

For example, friendships may provide opportunities to learn through imitation and reinforce behaviour. But it could also be that “birds of a feather flock together,” and adolescents seek friends with similar attitudes toward alcohol and other drugs.

Other studies have clearly demonstrated a link between substance use by young people and parental drinking and drug use. In this study, peer influences emerged as a stronger risk factor for adolescent substance use than parental drinking.

Hostile parenting style

When other factors were taken into consideration, adolescents in families where drinking was a source of tension were no more likely to drink to intoxication, or to use drugs, than their counterparts in families where drinking was not a problem.

However, a hostile parenting style did have an impact. If interactions with parents were characterized by nagging, inconsistent enforcement of rules, threats and anger, the odds of the adolescent getting drunk and using drugs were relatively high.

But it cannot be inferred that hostile parenting causes substance use. It is possible that the parents’ way of dealing with the adolescent may have changed in response to problem behaviours such as alcohol or drug use.

The study also found that the odds of using drugs were nearly double for adolescents in step-parent families compared with those in two-parent families.

You can read the full report “Alcohol and drug use in early adolescence” in the May 2004 edition of Health Reports.

For more information, contact Tina Hotton (416-946-8106), Statistics Canada’s Research Data Centre, University of Toronto.

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© 2004, Statistics Canada.