title: The relationship between neighborhood poverty and alcohol use: estimation by marginal structural models.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Previous studies on the relationship of neighborhood disadvantage with alcohol use or misuse have often controlled for individual characteristics on the causal pathway, such as income-thus potentially underestimating the relationship between disadvantage and alcohol consumption.
  
  
  METHODS
  We used data from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults study of 5115 adults aged 18-30 years at baseline and interviewed 7 times between 1985 and 2006. We estimated marginal structural models using inverse probability-of-treatment and censoring weights to assess the association between point-in-time/cumulative exposure to neighborhood poverty (proportion of census tract residents living in poverty) and alcohol use/binging, after accounting for time-dependent confounders including income, education, and occupation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The log-normal model was used to estimate treatment weights while accounting for highly-skewed continuous neighborhood poverty data. In the weighted model, a one-unit increase in neighborhood poverty at the prior examination was associated with a 86% increase in the odds of binging (OR = 1.86 [95% confidence interval = 1.14-3.03]); the estimate from a standard generalized-estimating-equations model controlling for baseline and time-varying covariates was 1.47 (0.96-2.25). The inverse probability-of-treatment and censoring weighted estimate of the relative increase in the number of weekly drinks in the past year associated with cumulative neighborhood poverty was 1.53 (1.02-2.27); the estimate from a standard model was 1.16 (0.83-1.62).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Cumulative and point-in-time measures of neighborhood poverty are important predictors of alcohol consumption. Estimators that more closely approximate a causal effect of neighborhood poverty on alcohol provided a stronger estimate than estimators from traditional regression models.
authors.affiliation: Center for Urban Epidemiologic Studies, New York Academy of Medicine, New York, NY 10029, USA. mcerda@nyam.org
authors.forename: Magdalena
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cerdá
authors.forename: Ana V
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Diez-Roux
authors.forename: Eric Tchetgen
authors.initials: ET
authors.lastname: Tchetgen
authors.forename: Penny
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gordon-Larsen
authors.forename: Catarina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kiefe
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000453:epidemiology*; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000453:epidemiology; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D015233:Models, Statistical; D016017:Odds Ratio; D011203:Poverty / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011204:Poverty Areas; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult