Parent and Peer Influences on Alcohol Use Problems: A Genetically Informed Study

描述(由申请人提供)：过去的研究发现，父母对青少年活动、同伴饮酒和后来的酒精使用障碍(AUD)的了解之间存在显著关系。然而，必须在遗传风险的背景下考虑这些关系。也就是说，青少年失控行为的遗传风险可能会影响照顾者对青少年生活的了解程度，青少年对同龄人的选择，以及青少年发展成酒精问题的可能性。然而，除了遗传风险之外，父母知识和同龄人影响的影响还没有被很好地理解。很少有研究测试父母的知识和同龄人对遗传风险得分之外的影响，这些得分可以解释结果的显著差异。过去的研究也表明，环境的影响可能会根据遗传风险的水平而有所不同，但到目前为止，还没有研究在广泛的遗传风险得分的不同水平上检查父母知识、同伴饮酒和子女饮酒问题之间的关系。这项拟议的研究将使用正在进行的跨越三代人的家族性酒精中毒纵向研究的数据来解决这些问题。我将创建广泛的遗传风险分数，通过利用几个遗传变异(例如DRD2、DAT1、GABRA1和OPRM1)，可能解释新出现的/年轻成年人酒精使用问题的更大比例的差异。这项研究将考察父母知识和同伴饮酒在基因-环境协变之上的影响(即青少年遗传风险和父母知识之间的关系，以及青少年遗传风险和同伴饮酒之间的关系)，并将确定父母知识、同伴饮酒和酒精问题之间的关系是否对处于特定遗传风险水平的青少年更强(即基因-环境交互作用)。这项拟议的研究提供了一个很好的机会，可以更好地了解父母知识、同伴饮酒和遗传风险对新出现的/年轻成年人饮酒问题的相对影响，并得出预防未成年人饮酒的启示。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Past research has found significant relations among parental knowledge about adolescents' activities, peer alcohol use, and later alcohol use disorders (AUDs). However, these relations must be considered in the context of genetic risk. That is, an adolescent's genetic risk for disinhibited behavior may affect both the amount of knowledge that caregivers have about the adolescent's life, the adolescent's choice of peer group, and the adolescent's likelihood of developing alcohol problems. However, the effects of parental knowledge and peer influences over and above genetic risk are not well-understood. Few studies have tested parental knowledge and peer influences over and above genetic risk scores that explain substantial variance in the outcomes. Past research also suggests that the effect of environment may vary according to level of genetic risk, but no study to date has examined the relations among parental knowledge, peer alcohol use, and offspring alcohol problems at different levels of a broad genetic risk score. The proposed study will address these questions using data taken from an ongoing longitudinal study of familial alcoholism spanning three generations. I will create broad genetic risk scores that may explain larger proportions of the variance in emerging/young adult alcohol use problems by utilizing several genetic variants (e.g. DRD2, DAT1, GABRA1, and OPRM1). The study will examine the influences of parental knowledge and peer alcohol use over and above gene-environment covariation (i.e., the relations between adolescent genetic risk and parental knowledge, and adolescent genetic risk and peer alcohol use) and will determine whether the relations among parental knowledge, peer alcohol use, and alcohol problems are stronger for adolescents at particular levels of genetic risk (i.e. gene-environment interaction). The proposed study provides an excellent opportunity to better understand the relative influences of parental knowledge, peer alcohol use, and genetic risk on emerging/young adult alcohol use problems and to draw implications for the prevention of underage drinking.