Parental socioeconomic status and binge drinking in adolescents: A systematic review

Binge drinking is a phenomenon of excessive alcohol use seen in many countries. The objectives of this systematic review are a) to investigate the effect of parental socioeconomic status on binge drinking in adolescents, b) to compare how binge drinking and parental socioeconomic status was measured across studies, and c) to compare the differences between developed and developing countries.

We searched PsycINFO and Ovid Medline databases for articles up to January 2016. Parental socioeconomic status is defined as household income, parental educational level, and parental occupational status. Binge drinking is defined as at least 4/5 alcohol drinks on a single occasion.

Four hundred and fourteen articles were granted from the databases search with an additional 28 articles were hand-searched through bibliographies. After abstracts and full-text were reviewed, a total of 20 studies have met inclusion criteria for this systematic review. In developed countries, included studies were done in the United States, United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, France, Netherlands, Hong Kong, and Canada. In developing countries, included studies were done in China and Brazil.

The majority of studies find no relationship between parental socioeconomic status and binge drinking in adolescents. However, studies that were done in developing countries yielded a weak positive association when no such association was found in developed countries. The variation on measuring binge drinking and parental socioeconomic status is discussed.

These findings may inform healthcare systems in prevention and intervention for binge drinking among adolescents (Am J Addict 2016;25:610-619).