UW-CTRI Researcher Dr. Wendy Slutske received a new grant from National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism to study how growing up and living in different types of neighborhoods affects alcohol use and misuse from childhood to middle adulthood.
Slutske will conduct secondary analyses of data from the landmark National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), a study that has prospectively followed 20,745 adolescents since 1994-95.
In addition to the prospective longitudinal design (that can help to tease apart cause and effect between neighborhood contexts and alcohol use and misuse), this project capitalizes on three other major strengths of the Add Health study:
- Most participants were genotyped (so that genetic risk for alcohol use and misuse can be characterized).
- The sample includes twin and sibling pairs (so the alcohol involvement of twins and siblings who move to neighborhoods differing in risk as adults can be compared).
- Neighborhood contexts were extracted from national databases (such as the census) across five waves of data collection (so that cumulative risk or changes in neighborhood risk can be examined).
“The aim is to gain a better understanding of the interplay between genetic risk factors and the neighborhood in which one lives—for example, whether one lives in a rural or urban community, in an area that is more or less disadvantaged—and alcohol involvement,” Slutske said.
“The results of this study might support the development of neighborhood-level preventive and treatment interventions.”
It also might suggest who would be especially aided by such interventions. The three -year grant is for $944,664.