Psychosocial, cultural and genetic influences on alcohol use in Asian American youth.

Abstract

Objective-Environmental and cultural factors, as well as a genetic variant of the aldehyde dehydrogenase gene (the ALDH2*2 allele) have been identified as correlates of alcohol use among Asian Americans. However, concurrent examination of these variables has been rare. The present study assessed parental alcohol use, acculturation and ALDH2 gene status in relation to lifetime, current and heavy episodic drinking among Chinese and Korean American undergraduates.Method-Participants (N = 428, 51% women; 52% Chinese American, age 18-19 years) were firstyear college students in a longitudinal study of substance use initiation and progression. Data were collected via structured interview and self-report, and participants provided a blood sample for genotyping at the ALDH2 locus.Results-Gender, parental alcohol use and acculturation significantly predicted drinking behavior. However, none of the hypothesized moderating relationships were significant. In contrast with previous studies, ALDH2 gene status was not associated with alcohol use. Conclusions-Resultsindicate that although the variables examined influence alcohol use, moderating effects were not observed in the present sample of Asian American college students. Findings further suggest that the established association ALDH2 status and drinking behavior in Asians may not be evident in late adolescence. It is possible that ALDH2 status is associated with alcohol consumption only following initiation and increased drinking experience.Asian Americans Comprise the fastest-growing ethnic minority population in the United States (Varma and Siris, 1996); accordingly, understanding the etiology of substance use in this group is increasingly important. It has been noted that substance use prevention initiatives should attend to culture-specific factors influencing use among emergent ethnic minority populations (Castro and Alarcon, 2002;Unger et al., 2002). To accomplish this goal it is necessary to first identify such factors, as well as to determine how culture-specific variables give rise to crossethnic differences in substance use. As adolescence is often marked by initiation and escalation of substance use (O'Malley et al., 1998), studies of Asian American youth are important to the identification of etiologic factors specific to alcohol and other drug use in this population.

Differential Effects of Acculturation on Drinking Behavior in Chinese- and Korean-American College Students

“…Whereas most studies suggest that acculturation is a risk factor for alcohol use among Asian Americans, the present findings suggest that protective effects may also exist and may vary by ethnic subgroup. Another study of college students found evidence that acculturation was a risk factor for heavy episodic drinking among Chinese Americans but not Korean Americans (Hendershot et al, 2005). Collectively, findings from that and the current study suggest that acculturation's influence on drinking behavior can vary in these two groups, with risk and protective influences being more evident among Chinese Americans and Korean Americans, respectively.…”

“…Some studies allow global inferences about acculturation's effects by comparing the drinking rates of U.S. Asians to their counterparts abroad (e.g., Higuchi et al, 1994;Johnson et al, 1987;Park et al, 1984;Yamamoto et al, 1994); however, these studies typically have not measured acculturation directly. Several studies of Asian Americans show that measured indices of acculturation correlate positively with drinking quantity/frequency (Hahm et al, 2003(Hahm et al, , 2004Hendershot et al, 2005;Nakashima and Wong, 2000;Nakawatase et al, 1993;Song et al, 2004;Sue et al, 1979). Most studies have assessed acculturation using unidimensional indicators such as place of birth, length of residency, or language.…”

Predictors of alcohol use during the first year of college: Implications for prevention

“…The same pattern was not true for females. Other studies have shown that greater acculturation is associated with greater substance use in Asian American college students (Hendershot, MacPherson, Myers, Carr, & Wall, 2005;So & Wong, 2006).…”

Cigarette Smoking Initiation During College Predicts Future Alcohol Involvement: A Matched-Samples Study

“…Because the procedure used and the small sample size limited the number of matching variables that could be considered, groups were compared on additional variables potentially related to alcohol use progression, including aldehyde dehydrogenase metabolizing enzyme (ALDH2) status and acculturation (Doran et al, 2007), parental alcohol dependence, peer smoking, and baseline past-14-day HDE. Although none of these variables differed signifi cantly across groups in the present study (Table 2), given the small sample size (and therefore limited statistical power), we chose to include ALDH2 (p = .42) and acculturation (p = .06) as covariates in the primary analyses of alcohol outcomes because these represent ethnic-specifi c variables that have been associated with alcohol use in other studies (Doran et al, 2007;Hendershot et al, 2005;Luczak et al, 2004).…”