Acculturative risk or selective retention? A longitudinal study of binge drinking in Asian and Latinx immigrant youth

Alcohol consumption is a significant public health concern in the US, increasingly impacting racial/ethnic minority youth. This study investigates binge drinking from adolescence to mature adulthood among Asian and Latinx Americans, using three waves of Add Health data and mixed-effects (melogit) modeling technique. Nativity and gender were used as key moderating variables. Guided by the acculturative risk framework, which posits that immigrants' healthier behavioral profiles diminish with longer US residence, the findings from this study offer only partial support for this hypothesis but provide stronger evidence for selection effects. Immigrants reported lower binge drinking rates than their US-born counterparts. While some acculturative risk was observed (e.g., English use among Latinx individuals), most immigrant segments maintained healthier profiles. Notably, immigrant females, particularly within the Latinx group, exhibited the flattest binge drinking trajectories, highlighting gender as a fundamental indicator of selective retention of alcohol consumption among US immigrants.