title: Adolescent drinking-a touch of social class?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To estimate whether parental socio-economic status (SES) is associated with adolescent drinking, and the degree to which a possible association may be accounted for by various parental factors.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cross-sectional Norwegian school survey from 2006 (response rate: 86%).
  
  
  METHODS
  Students aged 13-14 years (n = 5797), 15-16 years (n = 6613) and 17-18 years (n = 5351), of whom 51% were girls.
  
  
  METHODS
  Parents' education was our main SES indicator, and we distinguished between low (7%) and middle/high (93%) educational level. The outcomes comprised past-year drinking and intoxication. We also applied measures on general parenting, parents' alcohol-related permissiveness and parental intoxication. The main analyses were conducted using Poisson regression.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Parents' education had no statistically significant impact on alcohol use among the 17-18-year-olds, while 13-16-year-olds with low educated parents had an elevated relative risk (RR) of both drinking [RR = 1.21, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.13-1.29] and intoxication (RR = 1.32, 95% CI = 1.21-1.44). The RRs became statistically insignificant when including all the parental factors as covariates in the regression models. Among adolescents who had consumed alcohol, low parental education was related to more frequent drinking (RR = 1.24, 95% CI = 1.11-1.38) and intoxication episodes (RR = 1.42, 95% CI = 1.22-1.66). Again, the RRs became statistically insignificant when we accounted for all the parental factors. This pattern was replicated when we applied an alternative indicator for low parental SES.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Adolescent drinking in Norway appears to be related inversely to parents' social standing. The elevated risk of low socio-economic status vanishes when general parenting, alcohol-related parental permissiveness and parents' drinking are accounted for.
authors.affiliation: Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway.
authors.forename: Hilde
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Pape
authors.affiliation: Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway.|Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Thor
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Norström
authors.affiliation: Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway.
authors.forename: Ingeborg
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Rossow
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000435:Alcoholic Intoxication / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009664:Norway / Q000453:epidemiology; D016487:Parenting; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012306:Risk; D012923:Social Class; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D000066608:Underage Drinking / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
keywords: Adolescent drinking; alcohol-related parental permissiveness; general youth population; parental socio-economic status (SES); parenting; parents' drinking