© 2005 American Public Health Association DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2003.018952
Vincent Guilamo-Ramos and Margaret Johansson are with Columbia University, New York, NY. James Jaccard is with Florida International University, Miami, Fla. Robert Turrisi is with Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pa. Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Vincent Guilamo-Ramos, PhD, School of Social Work, Columbia University, 1225 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY 10027 (e-mail: rg650{at}columbia.edu).
Objectives. We examined the prevalence and dynamics of binge drinking among middle school students. Methods. We analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The sample was composed of approximately 5300 seventh-and eighth-grade students who were interviewed at 2 points in time. Results. Approximately 8% of seventh graders and 17% of eighth graders reported engaging in binge drinking during the past 12 months. These rates varied as a function of school characteristics. Low scores on the parenting variablescommunication quality, use of reasoning, and control and supervisionand binge drinking during middle school also were predictive of binge drinking during high school. Conclusions. Binge drinking among middle school students is an important phenomenon that for many students forecasts future binge drinking during high school.
There is a large body of research on the binge-drinking activities of older adolescents. Among high school seniors, approximately 80% reported that they had used alcohol, and almost one third reported at least 1 binge-drinking incident.1,2 Binge drinking among older adolescents has been linked to adverse outcomes, including decreased performance in school, alcohol-impaired driving, illicit drug use, and sexual aggression.35 Although college and high school binge drinking have been studied in depth, there are few studies of binge drinking among middle school students. This is despite the fact that about 50% of eighth graders reported having used alcohol, and 23% reported having been drunk at least once in their lives.6 A sizeable number of these students also reported binge drinking.6 Most studies of alcohol use among young adolescents have focused on general alcohol consumption. The research shows that lifelong drinking patterns often begin far sooner than high school and frequently can be traced to alcohol-related experiences during middle school.79 Entry into middle school from elementary school is a watershed event for most children. They enter a school that usually is physically larger, farther from home, and populated by older students. Accustomed to being in the same classroom with familiar classmates and a teacher who knows them well, middle school students encounter departmentalized teachers, didactic pedagogy, ability-based curricular tracking, and more competitive classroom settings.1012 Concomitant with these school changes are dramatic physical changes that youths undergo as they move toward pubertal maturation. These physical changes are accompanied by significant hormonal and social changes.1315 Adolescents rely on numerous coping strategies for dealing with these demands, including turning to alcohol and binge drinking. Among older adolescents, researchers acknowledge the connection between binge drinking and the negotiation of adolescent life passages, such as entering a new educational setting.3,16,17 It thus makes sense to explore the dynamics of binge-drinking behavior among middle school students who themselves are undergoing such transitions. Despite this, little is known about gender, racial/ethnic, or grade differences among middle school students with respect to binge drinking. We examined binge-drinking rates among a national sample of adolescents aged 12 to 14 years in the United States. We then considered the effect of school differences on binge-drinking rates, and we tested whether these differences vary systematically as a function of school characteristics. College and high school studies have shown that drinking rates differ as a function of school-level variables, such as student perceptions of permissive norms;1821 private versus public status,22 and, in colleges, the presence of fraternity drinking traditions, easy access to alcohol (e.g., kegs of beer on campus), and on-campus alcohol advertising.23,24 However, across-school studies of binge drinking among middle school students are relatively rare. We hypothesized that public schools and schools with larger numbers of students would show higher rates of binge drinking than private schools and schools with smaller student bodies. This hypothesis was based on the assumption that the larger public schools with larger class sizes pose greater challenges because individual students receive less attention from adults (e.g., teachers, counselors) and thereby produce a less supportive and potentially stressful environment. We also hypothesized that schools with stricter policies for punishing alcohol-related offenses would have lower rates of binge drinking because of a greater deterrence factor. Moreover, we hypothesized that schools that actively engaged parents, as indexed by the presence of a parent organization, would have lower rates of binge drinking. This was based on the assumption that schoolparent partnerships lead to more effective school programs for helping students adjust to the demands of middle school. Finally, we hypothesized that schools with a general climate of teacher concern for students would show lower rates of binge drinking than schools with climates of teacher apathy. This was based on the assumption that students benefit from the involvement of adult role models and expressions of teacher support. In addition to school-based influences, we also explored family influences on binge drinking. Parental influence on binge drinking has not been studied much among college students, primarily because of the assumption that parents have minimal influence on their children when they move out of the home. Among middle school students, however, it is well known that parents play a central role in adolescent development. School outreach efforts aimed at parents of students represent a viable intervention option for middle school officials.25 The design of such programs is facilitated by the identification of practical parenting strategies that parents can learn and then use to reduce binge-drinking tendencies. We evaluated 4 such variables, all of which have a theoretical and empirical base in the broader literature on adolescent development.14,2629 First, we hypothesized that parents who supervise and maintain control over their adolescents will have children who are less likely to engage in binge drinking. This is based on the assumption that control and supervision (1) minimize opportunities for adolescents to engage in binge drinking and (2) convey a sense of concern and involvement on the part of the parent. Second, we hypothesized that parents who have good communication with their children will be less likely to have children who engage in binge drinking. This is based on the assumption that open communication between parent and child helps children solve problems and maintain a sense of connection with parents. Third, we hypothesized that parents who reason with their children and explain the bases of their actions when children transgress will have children who are less likely to engage in binge drinking. This is based on the assumption that such activities help children internalize morals and develop a value structure to guide behavior when authority figures are not present. Finally, we hypothesized that parents who set high academic standards will have children who are less likely to engage in binge drinking. This is based on the assumption that keeping students involved in their schoolwork and oriented toward academics lessens both the opportunities and the motivations for binge drinking.
We used data from Add Health, a nationally representative school-based study of students in grades 7 to 12 conducted in 1995.30
Respondents
Data Collection
Measures School-level variables were assessed by interviewing principals or key staff of the principals. In addition to answering questions about the size of the student body (small = fewer than 400 students, medium = 4001000 students, and large = 1000 or more students) and the typical class size, principals reported the schools policies regarding students being caught with alcohol in school (consequences for first and second offenses). A measure of the overall school climate in terms of teacher apathy was obtained by calculating the average response of all students interviewed in a given school to the question "How much do you feel that your teachers care about you?" Students responded on a 5-point scale; higher scores indicated greater teacher apathy.
Binge Drinking Rates Table 1
Table 1
School Differences in Binge Drinking
Table 2
In addition to the variables in Table 2
Binge Drinking and Family Variables
In terms of frequency of binge drinking, where the focus was only on adolescents who had engaged in binge drinking, none of the parenting variables yielded statistically significant regression coefficients. For both sets of analyses, a wide range of interaction models was tested to determine whether the aforementioned trends varied by gender, grade, and race/ethnicity. No notable interaction effects were observed.
Transitions to High School
Our study is one of the first systematic analyses of binge drinking among middle school students. There were several notable results. First, binge-drinking rates among seventh graders were about 8%, but this rate increased to 17% among eighth graders. By eighth grade, nearly 1 in 5 adolescents had engaged in binge drinking at least once during the previous year. The classic gender differences so often observed in older adolescents with respect to binge drinking were not apparent among the middle school students. However, once the initial transition to binge drinking had been made, boys tended to engage in binge drinking more often than girls. There was a trend toward racial/ethnic differences in binge drinking that studies suggest will sharpen during older adolescence, with Latino and European American students showing heightened levels of binge drinking. However, these differences were only marginally significant, which suggests that the differential racial/ethnic trajectories may emerge in later years. We found that binge drinking during middle school was predictive of binge drinking during the transition from middle school to high school, with the odds of high school binge drinking being 11 times higher among middle school binge drinkers than among nondrinkers. This finding shows the importance of early intervention efforts. We observed differences in binge-drinking rates across schools, and these rates were higher in public versus private schools. Interestingly, the strictness of school policies for dealing with alcohol-related transgressions were not associated with school-level binge-drinking rates, which puts the deterrence value of adopting harsh sanctions such as school expulsion in question. School expulsion can have significant negative ramifications for a student. Our data suggest that such policies should not be based on assumptions of the deterrence value of harsher policies, but this suggestion requires further study. If schools want to have an impact on binge drinking, our data are consistent with the hypothesis that programs that combat teacher apathy by developing caring and engaged teacher attitudes might be productive. Another potential strategy for dealing with binge drinking during middle school is parent outreach. Engaging parents as partners and using parent volunteers to reach out to other parents may prove fruitful. School administrators can develop materials for parents that (1) help parents open communication channels with their children, (2) sensitize parents to the need for supervision and control (but not too much control), and (3) encourage parents to use reasoning and explanation when children transgress. Future research is needed to guide the development of such programs and to provide appropriate scientific evaluations of them.
Although our results are suggestive, they must be interpreted in light of study limitations. The binge-drinking indices relied on self-reports and may have been subjected to some degree of measurement error. The presence of measurement error in this and our other measures may have biased parameter estimates, thereby requiring interpretational caution. Our results were correlational in nature and, of course, do not permit unambiguous causal attributions. Specification errors can bias parameter estimates, and this also must be taken into account. The measure of binge-drinking frequency might be viewed by some as being "too ordinal" to justify the types of analyses we performed (however, see Jaccard and Turrisi34). Despite these caveats, we believe that our research provides insights for better understanding the binge-drinking behavior of young adolescents.
This research is based on data from the Add Health project, a program project designed by Richard Udry and Peter Bearman and funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (grant P01-HD31921 to the Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), with cooperative funding participation by the National Cancer Institute; the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism; the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders; the National Institute of Drug Abuse; the National Institute of General Medical Sciences; the National Institute of Mental Health; the National Institute of Nursing Research; the Office of AIDS Research, NIH; the Office of Behavior and Social Science Research, NIH; the Office of the Director, NIH; the Office of Research on Womens Health, NIH; the Office of Population Affairs, DHSS; the National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, DHHS; the Office of Minority Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, DHHS; the Office of Minority Health, Office of Public Health and Science, DHHS; the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, DHHS; and the National Science Foundation.
Human Participant Protection
Peer Reviewed
Contributors Accepted for publication March 30, 2004.
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