Alcohol consumption on college campuses throughout the United States remains to be a public health crisis in need of mitigation. University-funded counseling and treatment organizations continue to provide care and intervention programs to at-risk students using empirically sourced methods developed by behavioral research. While robust research exists in some areas of this particular field, there is a dearth of literature related to alcohol consumption factors in different minority ethnic groups within the American university system, with Latinx populations being no exception. This 2-year longitudinal study aimed to investigate relationships between alcohol consumption patterns, parental permissiveness, and racial discrimination in Latinx students in an effort to characterize racial disparities in alcohol use and treatment.
This study’s sample was composed of 215 students from three large public universities in the United States who were enrolled according to the following eligibility criteria: age 18-19, Latinx identification, and have parents who were able to complete a baseline survey related to alcohol use permissiveness. During the enrolled participants’ first year of school, their parents completed the aforementioned survey, and the students themselves completed surveys measuring their perceived ethnic discrimination (via Schedule of Racist Events). Additionally,
during their second year of school, participants completed surveys measuring their drinking habits (via Daily Drinking Questionnaire), approximate blood alcohol content (via Quantity/Frequency/Peak Questionnaire), and experiences of alcohol related consequences (via Young Adult Alcohol Consequences Questionnaire). Data analysis was performed using hierarchical bootstrapped linear regression modeling between each of the variables.
Results of the study found parental permissiveness to be positively correlated with approximate peak blood alcohol content, but not correlated with day-to-day drinking habits or consequences. Experiences of discrimination were not found to correlate with any of the alcohol related outcomes directly, however these experiences did moderate the relationships between parental permissiveness and approximate peak blood alcohol content and alcohol-related consequences.
Takeaway: Ethnic discrimination experiences among Latinx college students may moderate a well-developed relationship between parental permissiveness and alcohol consumption patterns. Current literature regarding alcohol consumption in Latinx college students in the United States is not present in great quantity and will require additional research to provide greater insight into the subject.
Waldron KA, Turrisi RJ, Mallett KA, Romano E. Examining parental permissiveness toward drinking and perceived ethnic discrimination as risk factors for drinking outcomes among Latinx college students. Addictive Behaviors. 2021;118:106900. doi:10.1016/j.addbeh.2021.106900