Developmental Issues in Underage Drinking

by National Institute of Health

To better understand underage drinking and how it can be prevented, research is being conducted in a wide variety of disciplines - focusing on aspects such as risk and protective factors, biological processes underlying human development, and the impact of socioenvironmental and pharmacologic influences on these mechanisms. This article examines underage drinking from a developmental perspective, which seeks to identify critical developmental periods during which interventions may be especially useful. These critical periods can provide key opportunities to redirect the course of development and alter the life course trajectory of the individual. Key words: underage drinking; adolescence; growth and development; biological maturation; psychological development; brain; cognitive development; risk factors; protective factors; social adjustment; peer group; gender differences; intervention; prevention; statistical modeling.

A mix of many different kinds of factors underlies the development of problem drinking in adolescents. For this reason, research focusing on any one area is likely to miss the complex interactions that shape how an adolescent will respond to the availability of alcohol.

Research that takes a developmental perspective seeks to provide an understanding of behavior in the context of the changes that take place during human maturation. The developmental perspective assumes interactions that not only are complex but that change over time.

The speed and timing of development are not uniform. The biologically based ability of a person to regulate mood as well as outwardly directed behavior, for example, changes during adolescence as the brain matures. The progress of these changes can affect how well an adolescent handles the tasks of adolescence - achieving autonomy and taking on more adult roles - or whether problems arise from a mismatch of development and social pressures.

Girls and boys differ not only in the pace of physical maturation but also in how they respond to the resulting social experiences for which physical changes serve as stimuli. In ways that are different for boys and girls, the attachments children form with peers or older teens can influence their risk of involvement in potentially harmful behavior.

One of the challenges of this research is to develop theories that then can be tested using statistical models to determine how well they predict how the complex array of social, cultural, environmental, and biological factors interact to increase or reduce the risk of underage drinking.

The Developmental Perspective

In the effort to understand underage drinking, research in many disciplines has contributed valuable information on risk and protective factors, biological processes underlying human development, and the impact of socioenvironmental and pharmacologic influences on these mechanisms. To date, much of this diverse work has been aligned with specific disciplinary paradigms. Problematic involvement with alcohol is multicausal, however; studies conducted within any single research discipline lack the breadth required for a comprehensive approach to the elucidation of risk and protective factors and to develop improved interventions. Genetic and socioenvironmental factors act together through biological mechanisms to generate the complexities of behavior, including early-age problematic involvement with alcohol.

The developmental perspective is a life course approach to understanding behavioral problems such as underage drinking and its consequences. This perspective has evolved from relatively recent advances in the fields of developmental psychopathology, human brain development, and behavior genetics. It is set in the context of the chronology of human maturation and the multiple social and cultural systems that interact with the developing human. Like systems biology, it posits complex multidirectional and reciprocal interactions that change over time. Viewed in this way, development encompasses not only the roots of risk and resilience in maturational pathways and developmental stages but also the modulation of behavior by present circumstances. The developmental perspective can inform the development of strategies and opportunities to prevent adverse, health- compromising drinking outcomes. It also can shape the content and process of therapeutic interventions.

Characteristics of Developmental Research

Developmental research is, by nature, longitudinal. There are multiple possible starting points and developmental pathways to a problematic or positive adolescent outcome. Young people who are vulnerable as preadolescents can acquire positive, health-promoting low-risk behaviors upon reaching adolescence. Others who are low risk as preadolescents can have substantial problematic involvement with alcohol in later adolescence. Cross-sectional strategies may not reveal the complex interactions of multiple causal factors with biological, cognitive, affective, psychological, and social maturational milestones in determining relevant positive and negative outcomes. This is particularly true given the variation within the population in the timing and achievement of these milestones.

About the Author

NIH is the nation's medical research agency - making important medical discoveries that improve health and save lives. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the primary Federal agency for conducting and supporting medical research.