This application is for a major intergenerational and life course study of problem alcohol use and related problem behavior including the victimization and perpetration of violent and other criminal offenses, illicit substance use, high-risk sexual behavior, and mental health problems. The proposed research involves collection of demographic, social psychological, attitudinal, behavioral, and biological data (DNA) on three generations of respondents. The middle generation has been part of a major longitudinal study, the National Youth Survey (NYS), which first collected data on the respondents and (their parents in 1976, when the respondents were adolescents 11-1 7 years old, and which has continued to collect data on the original respondents through 1992, when respondents were 27-33 years old. The proposed research involves re- interviewing both the original respondents and their parents, and also interviewing the spouses and children of the original respondents for the first time. Also for the first time, we would collect DNA samples from the original respondents, the spouses, children, and parents, and other biologically relevant individuals. These data, combined with parallel data from a twin study (CATS) and an adoption study (CAP) would provide a uniquely powerful design for the analysis of intergenerational transmission of problem alcohol use and other problem behaviors. Specific objectives for the research are (1) to describe and analyze intergenerational similarities and differences in problem alcohol use and related behavioral, social psychological, and attitudinal characteristics of a national household probability sample of respondents who were 11-17 years old in 1976 and their children (from before 1989) in 1999-2000, at the same age for parents and children; (2) to analyze the transmission of problem alcohol use and other problem behaviors from parents to children using socio-demographic, social psychological, attitudinal, and genetic data from a national household probability sample, an adoption sample, and a twin sample; (3) to analyze problem alcohol use in a life-course developmental perspective, including both intra-individual change over the life course and inter-individual differences in the adult consequences of adolescent problem alcohol use; and (4) to extend the coverage of the epidemiological data on the national sample from ages 11-33 to include ages 34-40.
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