Maturing out or in? Demographic determinants of young adult drinking trajectories and midlife alcohol use disorder risks.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Heavy alcohol use in young adulthood impacts future health, including alcohol use disorder (AUD). Dynamic trajectories of adolescent to adult alcohol use are understudied, as are sociodemographic correlates of trajectories.

Methods

We employed repeated-measures latent class analysis to identify trajectories of age 18-30 alcohol use among participants from Monitoring the Future, a representative, ongoing national sample of US adults surveyed longitudinally from 1976 to 2020 (N = 32,121). In each survey, participants' alcohol use was categorized as abstinence, "higher risk" (daily or binge drinking), or "lower risk" (no daily or binge drinking). We assessed how class membership was associated with sociodemographic predictors (sex, ethnoracial identity, birth cohort,

SUBMITTER: McKetta S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12861171 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature