Alcohol use by 1190 fourth, fifth and sixth grade students was assessed in a survey of four rural New Hampshire school districts. Half the students surveyed (596) drank, but not regularly; 5 percent (59) were regular drinkers, and an additional 2 percent (19) were regular drinkers and had been drunk at least once. Reported alcohol use increased with both grade and age, and males drank more than females. The child's attitude toward drinking, perceived family attitudes towards drinking, the number of drinking friends, and self-perceived wrongdoing by the child were four factors strongly related to alcohol use. Increased alcohol use was also associated with experimental and current use of cigarettes, marijuana, and smokeless tobacco.
Background
This study characterized the prevalence, drinking patterns, and sociodemographic characteristics of U.S. adult subpopulations with distinct drinking trajectories during the COVID‐19 pandemic's first 42 weeks.
Methods
Adult respondents (n = 8130) in a nationally representative prospective longitudinal study completed 21 biweekly web surveys (March 2020 to January 2021). Past‐week alcohol drinking frequency (drinking days [range: 0 to 7]) and intensity (binge drinking on usual past‐week drinking day [yes/no]) were assessed at each timepoint. Growth mixture models identified multiple subpopulations with homogenous drinking trajectories based on mean drinking days or binge drinking proportional probabilities across time.
Results
Four drinking frequency trajectories were identified: Minimal/stable (72.8% [95% CI = 71.8 to 73.8]) with <1 mean past‐week drinking days throughout; Moderate/late decreasing (6.7% [95% CI = 6.2 to 7.3) with 3.13 mean March drinking days and reductions during summer, reaching 2.12 days by January 2021; Moderate/early increasing (12.9% [95% CI = 12.2 to 13.6) with 2.13 mean March drinking days that increased in April and then plateaued, ending with 3.20 mean days in January 2021; and Near daily/early increasing (7.6% [95% CI = 7.0 to 8.2]) with 5.58 mean March drinking days that continued increasing without returning to baseline. Four drinking intensity trajectories were identified: Minimal/stable (85.8% [95% CI = 85.0% to 86.5%]) with <0.01 binge drinking probabilities throughout; Low‐to‐moderate/fluctuating (7.4% [95% CI = 6.8% to 8%]) with varying binge probabilities across timepoints (range:0.12 to 0.26); Moderate/mid increasing (4.2% [95% CI = 3.7% to 4.6%]) with 0.39 April binge drinking probability rising to 0.65 during August–September without returning to baseline; High/early increasing trajectory (2.7% [95% CI = 2.3% to 3%]) with 0.84 binge drinking probability rising to 0.96 by June without returning to baseline. Males, Whites, middle‐aged/older adults, college degree recipients, those consistently working, and those above the poverty limit were overrepresented in various increasing (vs. minimal/stable) frequency trajectories. Males, Whites, nonmarried, those without college degree, 18 to 39‐year‐olds, and middle aged were overrepresented in increasing (vs. minimal/stable) intensity trajectories.
Conclusions
Several distinct U.S. adult sociodemographic subpopulations appear to have acquired new drinking patterns during the pandemic's first 42 weeks. Frequent alcohol use assessment in the COVID‐19 era could improve personalized medicine and population health efforts to reduce drinking.
Minority students experience more discrimination on college campuses, yet little is known about fear of discrimination. This paper (a) establishes a new measure, fear of discriminatory violence, (b) assesses sociodemographic correlates of fear of discriminatory violence, and (c) estimates the effect of fear of discriminatory violence on anxiety and depression. A cross-sectional study using online surveys was undertaken among college students. A zero-inflated negative binomial model estimated the association between sociodemographics and fear of discriminatory violence. Multiple logistic regression models estimated the association between fear of discriminatory violence and anxiety/depression. Fear of discriminatory violence was higher among Black (ME: 11.9, p < 0.0001), Hispanic (ME: 5.9, p < 0.0001), Middle Eastern (ME: 5.4, p = 0.03), Asian (ME: 4.9, p < 0.0001), and multiracial (ME: 2.9, p < 0.0001) students compared with White students; transgender/gender non-conforming (ME: 7.2, p = 0.01) and female (ME: 3.4, p < 0.0001) students compared with male students; and gay (ME: 10.7, p < 0.0001), lesbian (ME: 9.0, p = 0.01), and bisexual students (ME: 3.4, p = 0.001) as well as those with a sexual orientation not included (ME: 5.5, p = 0.001), compared with heterosexual students. Increasing fear of discriminatory violence was associated with increased odds of anxiety (AOR: 1.04; 95% CI: 1.02, 1.06) and depression (AOR: 1.03; 95% CI: 1.02, 1.05). This understudied public health issue should be addressed to prevent fear of discriminatory violence and the resulting mental health consequences among college populations.
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