Parental Alcohol Use Disorders and Child Delinquency: The Mediating Effects of Executive Functioning and Chronic Family Stress

Objective: This study examines the relationship between parental alcohol use disorders (AUDs) and child violent and nonviolent delinquency. It also explores the mediating effects of executive functioning and chronic family stress on the parental AUD/child delinquency relationship. Method: Participants were 816 families with children (414 boys and 402 girls) born between 1981 and 1984 at Mater Misericordiae Mother's Hospital in Brisbane, Australia. Parents and children completed semistructured interviews, questionnaires and neuropsychological tests that assessed parental alcohol use, family psychiatric history, chronic family stress, child delinquency and child executive functioning. Results: Paternal (but not maternal) AUDs predicted child violent and nonviolent delinquency. Executive functioning mediated the relationship between paternal AUDs and violent delinquency, whereas family stress mediated the relationship between paternal AUDs and both violent and nonviolent delinquency. Conclusions: Results support a biosocial conceptualization of the paternal AUD/delinquency relationship. They suggest that paternal AUDs may be associated with child executive functioning and Family stress, which may in turn lead to child delinquency

Factors associated with unintended pregnancy in Brazil: cross-sectional results from the Birth in Brazil National Survey, 2011/2012

Background Unintended pregnancy, a pregnancy that have been either unwanted or mistimed, is a serious public health issue in Brazil. It is reported for more than half of women who gave birth in the country, but the characteristics of women who conceive unintentionally are rarely documented. The aim of this study is to analyse the prevalence and the association between unintended pregnancy and a set of sociodemographic characteristics, individual-level variables and history of obstetric outcomes. Methods Birth in Brazil is a cross-sectional study with countrywide representation that interviewed 23,894 women after birth. The information about intendedness of pregnancy was obtained after birth at the hospital and classified into three categories: intended, mistimed or unwanted. Multinomial regression analysis was used to estimate the associations between intendedness of a pregnancy, and sociodemographic and obstetric variables, calculating odds ratios and 95 % confidence intervals. All significant variables in the bivariate analysis were included in the multinomial multivariate model and the final model retaining variables that remained significant at the 5 % level. Results Unintended pregnancy was reported by 55.4 % of postpartum women. The following variables maintained positive and significant statistical associations with mistimed pregnancy: maternal age < 20 years (OR = 1.89, 95 % CI: 1.68–2.14); brown (OR = 1.15, 95 % CI: 1.04–1.27) or yellow skin color (OR = 1.56, 95 % CI: 1.05–2.32); having no partner (OR = 2.32, 95 % CI: 1.99–2.71); having no paid job (OR = 1.15, 95 % CI: 1.04–1.27); alcohol abuse with risk of alcoholism (OR = 1.25, 95 % CI: 1.04–1.50) and having had three or more births (OR = 2.01, 95 % CI: 1.63–2.47). The same factors were associated with unwanted pregnancy, though the strength of the associations was generally stronger. Women with three or more births were 14 times more likely to have an unwanted pregnancy, and complication in the previous pregnancies and preterm birth were 40 % and 19 % higher, respectively. Previous neonatal death was a protective factor for both mistimed (OR = 0.61, 95 % CI: 0.44–0.85) and unwanted pregnancy (OR = 0.44, 95 % CI: 0.34–0.57). Conclusions This study confirms findings from previous research about the influence of socioeconomic and individual risk factors on unintended pregnancy. It takes a new approach to the problem by showing the importance of previous neonatal death, preterm birth and complication during pregnancy as risk factors for unintended pregnancy

Ethnic Inequalities in Mortality: The Case of Arab-Americans

BACKGROUND: Although nearly 112 million residents of the United States belong to a non-white ethnic group, the literature about differences in health indicators across ethnic groups is limited almost exclusively to Hispanics. Features of the social experience of many ethnic groups including immigration, discrimination, and acculturation may plausibly influence mortality risk. We explored life expectancy and age-adjusted mortality risk of Arab-Americans (AAs), relative to non-Arab and non-Hispanic Whites in Michigan, the state with the largest per capita population of AAs in the US. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Data were collected about all deaths to AAs and non-Arab and non-Hispanic Whites in Michigan between 1990 and 2007, and year 2000 census data were collected for population denominators. We calculated life expectancy, age-adjusted all-cause, cause-specific, and age-specific mortality rates stratified by ethnicity and gender among AAs and non-Arab and non-Hispanic Whites. Among AAs, life expectancies among men and women were 2.0 and 1.4 years lower than among non-Arab and non-Hispanic White men and women, respectively. AA men had higher mortality than non-Arab and non-Hispanic White men due to infectious diseases, chronic diseases, and homicide. AA women had higher mortality than non-Arab and non-Hispanic White women due to chronic diseases. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Despite better education and higher income, AAs have higher age-adjusted mortality risk than non-Arab and non-Hispanic Whites, particularly due to chronic diseases. Features specific to AA culture may explain some of these findings

Use of SMS texts for facilitating access to online alcohol interventions: a feasibility study

A41 Use of SMS texts for facilitating access to online alcohol interventions: a feasibility study In: Addiction Science & Clinical Practice 2017, 12(Suppl 1): A4

Decision making and binge drinking: a longitudinal study

Behavioral decision making, as measured by the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is found to be diminished in individuals with substance dependence and other types of disinhibitory psychopathology. However, little is known regarding the relation between heavy alcohol use and decision-making skills in young adults. This study therefore investigated whether binge drinking is related to disadvantageous decision making, as measured by the IGT. We also examined the relation between decision making and impulsivity. Latent class growth analysis was used to classify college students into 4 groups (each group n=50, 50% male), based on their binge drinking trajectories over a 2-year time period (precollege through second year of college). Participants were 200 college students, divided in 4 subgroups: (1) low binge drinkers, (2) stable moderate binge drinkers, (3) increasing binge drinkers, and (4) stable high binge drinkers. A measure of decision making, the IGT, impulsivity questionnaires, and multiple indicators of heavy alcohol use were included. The stable high binge-drinking group made less advantageous choices on the IGT than the low binge-drinking group. Impulsivity was not related to decision-making performance. Decision-making performance did not differ by gender, but deck preferences and decision time patterns did differ; women preferred low frequency, high amount punishments to a greater extent than men. Although disadvantageous decision making is related to binge-drinking patterns in emerging adulthood, this relation is independent of impulsivity. Additionally, the association appears attributable to those who engage in heavy (binge) drinking at an early age, but not to age of onset of drinking in genera

Decision making and response inhibition as predictors of heavy alcohol use: a prospective study

Very few studies have investigated the "real world" prospective, predictive value of behavioral instruments used in laboratory studies to test decision-making abilities or impulse control. The current study examines the degree to which 2 commonly used decision-making/impulse control measures prospectively predict (heavy) alcohol use in a sample of college students. Two hundred healthy young adults (50% women) performed the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and a StopSignal inhibition task in the second college year. At testing and at the end of the fourth college year, heavy alcohol use was assessed. Disadvantageous performance on the IGT was associated with higher scores on a heavy drinking measure and higher quantity/frequency of alcohol use 2 years past neurocognitive testing in male students even after controlling for prior drinking. These results were corrected for heavy drinking and alcohol use in the period before neurocognitive testing. Interactions with gender indicated that this general pattern held for male but not for female students. Level of response inhibition was not associated with either of the alcohol use measures prospectively. These findings indicate that a neurocognitive decision-making task is predictive of maladaptive alcohol use. Advantageous decision makers appear to show adaptive real-life decision making, changing their drinking habits to the changing challenges of early adulthood (e.g., finishing college), whereas disadvantageous decision makers do not, and continue to drink heavily. These findings extend earlier findings of neurocognitive predictors of relapse in clinical substance-dependent groups, to subclinical alcohol use and abus