Background: Peer drinking is one of the most robust predictors of college students' alcohol use and can moderate students' genetic risk for alcohol use. Peer effect research generally suffers from 2 problems: selection into peer groups and relying more on perceptions of peer alcohol use than peers' selfreport. The goal of the present study was to overcome those limitations by capitalizing on a genetically informed sample of randomly assigned college roommates to examine multiple dimensions of peer influence and the interplay between peer effects and genetic predisposition on alcohol use, in the form of polygenic scores.Methods: We used a subsample (n = 755) of participants from a university-wide, longitudinal study at a large, diverse, urban university. Participants reported their own alcohol use during fall and spring and their perceptions of college peers' alcohol use in spring. We matched individuals into their rooms and residence halls to create a composite score of peer-reported alcohol use for each of those levels. We examined multiple dimensions of peer influence and whether peer influence moderated genetic predisposition to predict college students' alcohol use using multilevel models to account for clustering at the room and residence hall level.Results: We found that polygenic scores (b = 0.12), perceptions of peer drinking (b = 0.37), and roommates' self-reported drinking (b = 0.10) predicted alcohol use (all ps < 0.001), while average alcohol use across residence hall did not (b = À0.01, p = 0.86). We found no evidence for interactions between peer influence and genome-wide polygenic scores for alcohol use.Conclusions: Our findings underscore the importance of genetic predisposition on individual alcohol use and support the potentially causal nature of the association between peer influence and alcohol use.

Background Public health concern over college students mixing caffeine-containing energy drinks (EDs) and alcohol has contributed to an array of ED-focused research studies. One review found consistent associations between ED use and heavy/problem drinking as well as other drug use and risky behaviors (Nutr Rev 72:87–97, 2014). The extent to which similar patterns exist for other sources of caffeine is not known. The present study examined associations between coffee and ED consumption and alcohol, tobacco and other drug use; alcohol use problems; and parental substance abuse and mental health problems in a sample of college freshmen. Methods Subjects were N = 1986 freshmen at an urban university who completed an on-line survey about demographics; caffeine; alcohol, tobacco and other drug use; and family history. The sample was 61% female and 53% White. Chi-square analyses and multivariable binary or ordinal logistic regression were used to compare substance use, problem alcohol behavior, and familial risk measures across 3 caffeine use groups: ED (with or without Coffee) (ED + Co; N = 350); Coffee but no ED (Co; N = 761); and neither coffee nor ED (NoCE; N = 875) use. Results After adjusting for gender and race, the 3 caffeine use groups differed on 8 of 9 symptoms for alcohol dependence. In all cases, the ED + Co group was most likely to endorse the symptom, followed by the Co group and finally the NoCE group (all p < .002). A similar pattern was found for: use 6+ times of 5 other classes of drugs (all p < .05); extent of personal and peer smoking (all p < .001); and paternal problems with alcohol, drugs and anxiety/depression as well as maternal alcohol problems and depression/anxiety (p < .04). Conclusions The response pattern was ubiquitous, with ED + Co most likely, Co intermediate, and NoCE least likely to endorse a broad range of substance use, problem alcohol behaviors, and familial risk factors. The finding that the Co group differed from both the ED + Co and NoCE groups on 8 measures and from the NoCE group on one additional measure underscores the importance of looking at coffee in addition to EDs when considering associations between caffeine and other risky behaviors.

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The goals of the present study were to use data from the first national longitudinal study of students in collegiate recovery programs (CRPs) to 1) provide an updated characterization of CRP students, with respect to demographics and past problem severity; 2) characterize current psychosocial functioning and examine changes in functioning over time; and 3) examine the impact of COVID-19 on CRP students. Data came from a longitudinal cohort study focused on the impact of CRPs on participating students' success initiated in fall 2020. Four-year universities and community colleges with CRPs were invited to be partners on this project. Three cohorts of participants were recruited. All participants who completed the baseline survey (N = 334) were invited to complete follow-up surveys. The sample was composed of mostly White, cisgender undergraduate students with an average age of 29 years at baseline. CRP students generally reported challenging personal and academic histories, including high levels of polysubstance use and substance problem severity. They evidenced high levels of current psychosocial functioning. Recovery-related functioning (i.e., recovery capital, quality of life) was generally high at baseline and decreased slightly over time. COVID-19 represented a substantial source of stress for many CRP students, impacting some individuals' abstinence.These results from the first national longitudinal study of CRP students parallel findings from other cross-sectional and/or CRP-specific studies and provide novel insights into the stability of recovery functioning. These results can advance our understanding and characterization of the national CRP student population, with the ability to examine recovery-related constructs over time.