Intergenerational Continuity of Substance Use

Abstract

Guided by rigorous methodology and a life-course perspective, the goal of this research is to address a gap in current knowledge on whether, when, and how strongly intergenerational continuity of substance use exists when examining age-equivalent and developmentally specific stages of the life course. Annual self-reported substance use measures were analyzed from a prospective, longitudinal, and nationally representative sample that originally consisted of 1,725 respondents and their families, who were then interviewed over a 27-year period from 1977 to 2004. Findings from multilevel random-intercept regression models provide support for intergenerational continuity when substance use occurs in emerging adulthood but not when limited to adolescence. Implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed.

Intergenerational Continuity in Cannabis Use: The Role of Parent's Early Onset and Lifetime Disorder on Child's Early Onset

“…However, we note that almost all other prospective, longitudinal data sources are limited in the same way with respect to a specific geographic locale. Nonetheless, this is the first study to demonstrate IG continuity among a predominantly minority sample (i.e., 90% of the families were non-White in RIGS compared to 22% in the Oregon Youth Study, 16 27% in the National Youth Survey Family Study, 15 and 59% in the Seattle Social Development Study Intergenerational Project 17 ), suggesting the importance of IG continuity in an ethnically diverse sample.…”

“…Surprisingly little published work is available to quantify the specific direct and indirect effects of a parent's cannabis use during adolescence on offspring's cannabis use, particularly when limited to papers meeting the methodological rigor to study IG hypotheses. 14 One exception is Knight and colleagues 15 who report a direct relationship between frequency of parental use of cannabis during both adolescence and emerging adulthood and frequency of child cannabis use during these same time periods. Kerr, Tiberio, and Capaldi 16 also examined the relationship between frequency of parent cannabis use during adolescence (retrospectively reported for mothers but prospectively reported for fathers) and offspring cannabis use onset during adolescence and found an indirect IG effect via two social context variables – peer marijuana use and peer delinquency.…”

“…19 Evidence suggests that the antisocial behavior of fathers and mothers differentially affects children with greater continuity in antisocial between fathers and their children compared to mothers and their children. 18,20–22 Therefore, we depart from prior work on IG continuity in cannabis use 15,16,17 and evaluate our hypotheses separately for mothers and fathers in order to determine if sex of the parent conditions IG continuity in cannabis use.…”

Marijuana Legalization and Parents' Attitudes, Use, and Parenting in Washington State

“…However, there is little research from which to make confident predictions about the influence of changing norms and marijuana legalization on those who are actively parenting. Notably, parental substance use is strongly associated with use among their children [8–10], so to the extent marijuana legalization increases use among parents then their children would be at increased risk for use. One study [11], based in part on SSDP data, confirmed that parents’ marijuana-specific norms and use were associated with child substance use.…”

Associations Between Parental and Grandparental Marijuana Use and Child Substance Use Norms in a Prospective, Three-Generation Study

“…A large body of studies shows a link between parent and child substance use [4,5,7,8], including marijuana use [9,10]. Studies of the association between parent and offspring substance use typically have looked at either “current” or “lifetime” substance use by parents without regard to the timing of use in the parent's life course.…”