Prospective Intergenerational Associations between Parents' and Children's Illicit Substance Use During Adolescence

Intergenerational studies have identified relations between adolescents' and their future offspring's cannabis and alcohol use, but rarely have examined the association for other illicit drug use. Given the low prevalence of such use in community populations, we pooled data from three prospective intergenerational studies to test this link.

Participants were 1,060 children of 937 parents who had been repeatedly assessed since early adolescence. Children and parents reported on their use of cocaine, stimulants, hallucinogens, sedatives/tranquilizers, and opiates/narcotics from ages 10 to 18 years. Intergenerational similarities in any versus no use of these drugs were formally modeled using logistic regression. Patterns also were descriptively analyzed.

Parent illicit substance use was associated with significantly higher odds of child use (adjusted odds ratio [95% confidence interval] = 2.682 [1.328-5.416], p = 0.006). However, intergenerational continuity was modest; 87% of children whose parent used illicit drugs in adolescence did not use such drugs, and 77% of parents of children who used illicit drugs had not themselves used these drugs during adolescence.

The use of illicit substances by parents during their teenage years poses a risk for their offspring's similar behaviors. However, the discontinuity of these behaviors across generations implies children are largely resilient to or protected from this risk, and conversely that other aspects of parents' and children's experiences or characteristics may be more powerful risks for children's illicit drug use than this transgenerational influence.