Cited by 292Substance Abuse Treatment and OutcomesYouth, Drugs, and ViolenceHealth disparities and outcomes

Are adolescents with high socioeconomic status more likely to engage in alcohol and illicit drug use in early adulthood?

Open access
Humensky, Jennifer L·2010·Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Previous literature has shown a divergence by age in the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and substance use: adolescents with low SES are more likely to engage in substance use, as are adults with high SES. However, there is growing evidence that adolescents with high SES are also at high risk for substance abuse. The objective of this study is to examine this relationship longitudinally, that is, whether wealthier adolescents are more likely than those with lower SES to engage in substance use in early adulthood. METHODS: The study analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (AddHealth), a longitudinal, nationally-representative survey of secondary school students in the United States. Logistic regression models were analyzed examining the relationship between adolescent SES (measured by parental education and income) and substance use in adulthood, controlling for substance use in adolescence and other covariates. RESULTS: Higher parental education is associated with higher rates of binge drinking, marijuana and cocaine use in early adulthood. Higher parental income is associated with higher rates of binge drinking and marijuana use. No statistically significant results are found for crystal methamphetamine or other drug use. Results are not sensitive to the inclusion of college attendance by young adulthood as a sensitivity analysis. However, when stratifying by race, results are consistent for white non-Hispanics, but no statistically significant results are found for non-whites. This may be a reflection of the smaller sample size of non-whites, but may also reflect that these trends are driven primarily by white non-Hispanics. CONCLUSIONS: Previous research shows numerous problems associated with substance use in young adults, including problems in school, decreased employment, increases in convictions of driving under the influence (DUI) and accidental deaths. Much of the previous literature is focused on lower SES populations. Therefore, it is possible that teachers, parents and school administrators in wealthier schools may not perceive as great to address substance abuse treatment in their schools. This study can inform teachers, parents, school administrators and program officials of the need for addressing drug abuse prevention activities to this population of students.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1186/1747-597x-5-19

Cites

32 of 33 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Cook P Moore M Culyer AJ, Newhouse JP Alcohol Handbook of Health Economics 2000 Amsterdam: New York: Elsevier
  2. Johnston J DiNardo J Econometric Method 1996 Fourth New York: McGraw-Hill

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Humensky, J. L.
Affiliations
Edward Hines, Jr. VA Hospital (US)
Corresponding author
Humensky, Jennifer L
Venue
Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and Policy
Published
2010-08-05
Volume
5
Issue
1
Pages
19-19
ISSN
1747-597X (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2125910289
Cited by
291
References
33
Citations by year
2026: 9 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 26 · 2022: 17 · 2021: 17 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 20 · 2018: 23 · 2017: 29 · 2016: 25 · 2015: 18 · 2014: 18 · 2013: 19 · 2012: 16
FWCI
10.50
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Substance Abuse Treatment Prevention and Policy (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • AcademyHealth
  • University of Chicago
  • Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (HS 00084)
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (P01‐HD31921)
  • National Institute on Drug Abuse
  • National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P01-HD31921)
  • Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P01- HD31921, P01HD031921)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Substance Abuse Treatment and Outcomes
  • Social Sciences › Demography › Youth, Drugs, and Violence
  • Social Sciences › Health › Health disparities and outcomes
Keywords
socioeconomic status, adolescent substance use, early adulthood, binge drinking, cannabis use, cocaine use, parental education, parental income, racial disparities, substance use prevention, Add Health
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Alcohol Drinking, Data Collection, Female, Humans, Longitudinal Studies, Male, Social Class, Illicit Drugs, United States, Logistic Models, Substance-Related Disorders

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review