Economic Circumstances in Childhood and Subsequent Substance Use in Adolescence – A Latent Class Analysis: The youth@hordaland Study

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to investigate the association between longitudinal registry-based data on family income during childhood and self-reported substance use in adolescence, including potential alcohol- or drug problems. Data from the Norwegian population-based youth@hordaland-survey was employed, and the analyzed included n = 8,983 adolescents aged 16–19 years. This information was linked to registry-based information about childhood family income for seven consecutive years prior to adolescents’ participation in the youth@hordaland-survey. Latent class analyses (LCA) were used to examine associations between patterns of family economic circumstances in childhood and subsequent substance use in adolescence. Based on the LCA, we identified four distinct patterns of family economic circumstances: a ‘never poor’ (89.3%) group, followed by two groups characterized by moving in (3.0%) or out (4.6%) of poverty, and a final ‘chronically poor’ (3.1%) group. Several findings were of interest: the chronically poor reported less daily snus use, fewer had tried alcohol, were less likely to report frequent intoxication, and less prone to have potential alcohol- or drug-related problems compared to all other groups. They were also less likely to have tried any illicit drug compared to those moving in or out of poverty. Finally, the chronically poor reported more daily smoking than the never poor group, but less daily smoking than the moving out of poverty group. The never poor group was less likely to have tried any illicit drugs compared to the groups moving into or out of poverty, and less likely to smoke daily compared to the moving out of poverty group. In other words, the present study somewhat surprisingly suggested lower substance use among the chronically poor adolescents compared to other adolescents on several of the measures of substance use.

Assessing the Impact of Changes in Household Socioeconomic Status on the Health of Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review

“…Among the nine articles that assessed the relationship between SES changes and child/adolescent health behaviors, three examined adolescent substance use: one in the U.S., one in Norway, and one in Brazil. Together, the three studies suggest that downward income mobility during childhood may be associated with increased alcohol (Poonawalla et al 2014 ), tobacco (Hallal et al 2012 ), or drug use (Skogen et al 2019 ) in adolescence. The Nordic paper also found that adolescents who experienced upward mobility in childhood reported more tobacco and drug usage (Skogen et al 2019 ).…”

“…Together, the three studies suggest that downward income mobility during childhood may be associated with increased alcohol (Poonawalla et al 2014 ), tobacco (Hallal et al 2012 ), or drug use (Skogen et al 2019 ) in adolescence. The Nordic paper also found that adolescents who experienced upward mobility in childhood reported more tobacco and drug usage (Skogen et al 2019 ). In contrast, Hallal et al’s ( 2012 ) study in Brazil found upward mobility to be associated with less tobacco.…”

“…In contrast, Hallal et al’s ( 2012 ) study in Brazil found upward mobility to be associated with less tobacco. It should be noted however, that the Nordic study assessed tobacco and drug use at ages 16–19, so a portion of this sample fell outside the target age range of this review (Skogen et al 2019 ).…”

“…Five of the eight articles examined the relationship between changes in income and subsequent child/adolescent health outcomes. Among those five studies, two provided evidence of a significant relationship between changes in income and the subsequent health behaviors of adolescents (Sivertsen et al 2017 ; Skogen et al 2019 ). Exclusion of either article from the review would not significantly alter the overall conclusion that the evidence linking income changes to health behaviors is inconclusive, as inconsistent results were observed for each category of health behavior and these two studies each evaluated a different type of health behavior.…”

School Well-Being and Drug Use in Adolescence

“…As their name suggests, risk conducts put at risk the well-being or the health of the person who engages in them or those in their surroundings. Adolescence is a complex period and, therefore, propitious for these kinds of conducts to arise ( Skogen et al, 2019 ). However, despite the social alarm they generate, in most cases, their appearance during this period is linked to experimenting and, in the same way they appear, they disappear ( Sánchez-Sosa et al, 2014 ; Batllori, 2016 ; Tena-Suck et al, 2018 ).…”