title: Education and alcohol use: A study of gene-environment interaction in young adulthood.
abstract: The consequences of heavy alcohol use remain a serious public health problem. Consistent evidence has demonstrated that both genetic and social influences contribute to alcohol use. Research on gene-environment interaction (GxE) has also demonstrated that these social and genetic influences do not act independently. Instead, certain environmental contexts may limit or exacerbate an underlying genetic predisposition. However, much of the work on GxE and alcohol use has focused on adolescence and less is known about the important environmental contexts in young adulthood. Using data from the young adult wave of the Finnish Twin Study, FinnTwin12 (N = 3402), we used biometric twin modeling to test whether education moderated genetic risk for alcohol use as assessed by drinking frequency and intoxication frequency. Education is important because it offers greater access to personal resources and helps determine one's position in the broader stratification system. Results from the twin models show that education did not moderate genetic variance components and that genetic risk was constant across levels of education. Instead, education moderated environmental variance so that under conditions of low education, environmental influences explained more of the variation in alcohol use outcomes. The implications and limitations of these results are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of African American Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA; Department of Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA. Electronic address: pbarr2@vcu.edu.
authors.forename: Peter B
authors.initials: PB
authors.lastname: Barr
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA; Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA.
authors.forename: Jessica E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Salvatore
authors.affiliation: Department of Human and Molecular Genetics, School of Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA; Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA; Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA; Massey Cancer Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA.
authors.forename: Hermine
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Maes
authors.affiliation: Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA; Faculty of Business, Department of Actuary and Risk Management, Karabuk Univesity, Turkey.
authors.forename: Fazil
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Aliev
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, University of Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Antti
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Latvala
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA.
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Viken
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA.
authors.forename: Richard J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Rose
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, University of Helsinki, Finland; Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, National Institute for Health and Welfare, Finland; Institute for Molecular Medicine FIMM, University of Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Jaakko
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kaprio
authors.affiliation: Department of African American Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA; Department of Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA; Department of Human and Molecular Genetics, School of Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA.
authors.forename: Danielle M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Dick
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000235:genetics / Q000523:psychology; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland / Q000453:epidemiology; D059647:Gene-Environment Interaction; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D018433:Twin Studies as Topic / Q000379:methods; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Alcohol use; Education; Gene-environment interaction; Twin models; Young adults