Rural Southern Contexts and Pathways to Black Men's Alcohol Use and Abuse: A Ten-Year Prospective Analysis

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PROJECT SUMMARY Low-socioeconomic status (SES) Black men experience more negative consequences per ounce of alcohol consumed than do their White peers, including alcohol use disorders and alcohol-related injuries, social, legal, criminal justice, and work difficulties; and chronic disease risk. Notably, heavy drinking is not a prerequisite for negative outcomes; heightened consequences can occur at modest drinking levels. The decade after high school is a developmental inflection point for alcohol use among Black men. Alcohol use is low during adolescence, with steep increases during the young adult years. “Late onset” drinking is typically associated with declining use during ages 25-30 and reduced risk for chronic problems: an emerging adult limited pattern. In contrast, low SES Black men, despite a late onset, are at risk for escalating use and long-term consequences: an alcohol use proliferation pattern. To date, no prospective studies have been conducted with low-SES Black men that investigate the psychosocial processes that amplify, sustain, or mitigate alcohol use and its consequences across the adult transition. We propose to collect two waves of data from 400 participants in the African American Men's Project (AMP). AMP participants live in rural Georgia, a region of persistent poverty and racial disparities in health. Men provided data (M ages 20.3, 21.9, and 23.6) on their use of alcohol and other drugs, psychological functioning, and contextual and developmental risk and protective processes; follow-up data will be collected when men are approximately ages 26.5 and 28.5. This will permit an investigation of risk and resilience across the decade after high school when escalating alcohol use rates and consequences manifest. We expect that scarce resources make the transition to the workforce and to adult roles a difficult process. Some men who see no pathway to attainment of future goals, withdraw from conventional institutions and relationships that deter alcohol use and minimize its consequences. Among socially and economically marginalized young men, chronic stress and major negative life events proliferate, taxing men's emotional and cognitive resources, increasing the attractiveness of alcohol use, and promoting maladaptive decision making. Despite the toll that resource-poor rural environments exact, many will avoid heavy drinking and alcohol use consequences. We thus also propose to investigate factors associated with family relationships, religiosity, coping strategies, and racial identity that attenuate of alcohol use vulnerabilities.