The Association Between the Education of Alcohol in Schools and the Development of Alcohol Use Disorder

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Andy Sampedro

I am a sophomore at Wesleyan University and currently pursuing a degree in Psychology and Hispanic Literatures and Cultures as well as a minor in Education Studies. I’m from New Haven, CT, and looking to find a career in Clinical Psychology. In my free time, I love listening to music, reading, and baking for people close to me.

Abstract: Education about alcohol in schools has been shown to prevent students from developing alcohol use disorder throughout adolescence. With research being conducted on these programs in schools, not much is known if these initiatives have any long-term effects on the participants’ lives. The observed sample was drawn from waves 1 and 5 of ADDHEALTH (The U.S. National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health). The responses were recorded through surveys from samples of students in grades 7-12 during the 1994-95 school year. Participants were followed for five waves until most recently in 2016-18. Whether the participants received education on the effects of alcohol was taken into account as the explanatory variable and how many alcoholic drinks consumed in a day was used to determine alcohol use disorder as a response variable. The age at which the participants consumed their first alcoholic drink was taken into account as a third variable. After conducting a logistic regression analysis, it was found that there is no statistical significance between alcohol education received in schools and the development of alcohol use disorder later in life (p-value = 0.633). Although there was no significance between the previous variables, when including variables such as the relationship between a biological mother or father, it was found that there was a significant relationship between a participant not having a relationship with their biological mother (p-value = 0.040).