Psychosocial and cultural predictors of alcohol use among African-American and Caucasian adolescents

The primary purpose of this study was to determine if psychosocial and cultural variables used to predict alcohol use among Caucasian adolescents were the same as or were different from those used to predict alcohol use among African American adolescents. A second purpose of this study was to determine if differences existed in the prevalence of alcohol use between a sample of 207 African American (85 male, 122 female) and 317 Caucasian (144 male, 173 female) adolescents. These adolescents were enrolled in 7th through 12th grade, general education classes in a midwest metropolitan school district. Five self-report instruments were used to collect information on the following variables: severity of alcohol use, level of depression, level of parental influence, level of peer influence, level of religious commitment, level of religious involvement, and level of self-esteem. A regression analysis was used to determine the predictive value of these measures across groups. Although a significant relation existed between specific dimensions of self-esteem, parental influence, and religious belief and alcohol use for Caucasian adolescents, no significant relation existed between any variables and alcohol use for African American adolescents. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was computed to determine differences across groups using a 2 (African American vs Caucasian) x 2 (male vs female) fixed effect design. Significant mean differences existed between groups by race and gender for alcohol use. Implications for school-based prevention programs and additional areas for future research are discussed