Understanding the intergenerational transmission of substance use and problem behavior: Implications for future research and preventive interventions.

Abstract

The Constitution of the Iroquois Nation states that we should "look and listen for the welfare of the whole people and have always in view not only the present, but also the coming generations." The excellent intergenerational longitudinal studies represented here help us better understand patterns of behaviors across generations. Collectively, these studies provide a pathway for future research on contexts and trends in substance use, research on age of onset among early generations, and research related to epigenetics to improve prevention interventions.

Introduction to the special section on the intergenerational transmission of risk for substance use.

“…One perspective on the intergenerational association concerns its implications for the child and how the parent and the child’s environment are operating in the present moment to affect risk and protection. From this standpoint, parents’ histories are not modifiable but could be used to identify high-risk populations, specify and intervene on mechanisms by which parents’ histories would otherwise increase risk during the child’s lifetime, and ultimately—as Haggerty and Carlini (2020) note—avoid the trap of self-fulfilling prophecy. However, another vantage point on intergenerational continuities centers on parents when they were still adolescents and the long-term negative impacts their early involvement in cannabis use could have on their later adjustment and family formation.…”

“…Finally, an important element of the call for papers was a request for greater attention to the prevention implications of the findings of intergenerational studies than is typical in etiological research reports. We encouraged this prevention emphasis by explicitly asking the investigative teams to speculate further than they normally would regarding prevention issues and by inviting two groups of substance use prevention scholars (Etz, Goldstein, Lopez, & Blanco, 2020; Haggerty & Carlini, 2020) to offer prevention-oriented commentaries.…”

On the Intergenerational Transmission of Health Inequality

“…The worst thing is its transmissible property between generations. As the case indicated above, addicted objects like tobacco products can get the addicting behavior passed on from parental generation to children, which unavoidably threatens sound health (86)(87)(88). We herein do not talk about the potential underlying mechanisms of addiction but the debilitating effect of addiction on health that transmits intergenerationally.…”

“…And this type of transmission strongly correlated with parental smoking habits if they had an early onset, steep acceleration, high levels of smoking, and persistence over time, which pose the highest risk for transmitting the smoking behavior to their adolescent children (76). Besides smoking, other types of addictive behaviors, including drinking (77), drugs (78), sex (79), gambling (80), and foods (81), all possess dramatic effects on their transfer to successive generations.…”

“I Grew Up Amidst Alcohol and Drugs:” a Qualitative Study on the Lived Experiences of Parental Substance Use Among Adults Who Developed Substance Use Disorders Themselves

“…Generational continuity in the use of substances has gained attention for several decades (1)(2)(3)(4). There is growing evidence showing that several biopsychosocial factors may contribute to heightened substance use risk in children of parents with substance use disorders (SUDs) (5)(6)(7), indicating that both genetic (8)(9)(10), and environmental factors (11,12) play an important role in the heightened susceptibility to and manifestation of SUDs later in life (13)(14)(15).…”