Psychosocial determinants of alcohol use among minority youth living in public housing developments

Youth residing in low income, inner city, public housing developments might be extremely vulnerable to psychosocial risk factors associated with alcohol use. In this study, we developed and tested a model of alcohol etiology with 624 African-American and Hispanic 7th graders residing in public housing developments. The students completed questionnaires concerning their alcohol use, social influences on their drinking, their drinking attitudes and knowledge, their psychosocial skills, and demographic and behavioral control information. Logistic regression analyses indicated that social influences from adults, friends, and family members predicted alcohol use. Individual psychosocial characteristics, e.g., drinking refusal, lowered the odds of drinking. These findings imply that effective prevention approaches targeting minority urban youths residing in public housing developments should provide them with an awareness of social influences to drink, correct misperceptions concerning the prevalence of drinking, and train them in relevant psychosocial skills.