VCU Study: Teenage alcohol use may be influenced by both gender and friendship

By Sathya Achia Abraham

When it comes to alcohol, smoking and drug use, teens tend to be influenced by friends who engage in the same behaviors, according to new findings from an international team of researchers.

Danielle M. Dick, Ph.D., assistant professor in the department of psychiatry in the VCU School of Medicine, and researchers from other universities, examined how influences on alcohol use may differ between the sexes during adolescence. Additionally, they were interested in how the gender of friends may also affect this association.

The study found that adolescents who drink alcohol, smoke and/or use drugs tend to have peers who do the same. It also found that girls may be more influenced by their friends' drinking, and that having opposite-sex friends who drink is also associated with increased drinking for both genders.

The team reviewed data from approximately 1,400 pairs of Finnish twins. The participants were asked about their alcohol use and friendships at age 14.

The study appears online and in the December issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. Dick conducted the research while on faculty at Washington University in St. Louis. Read the journal's news release here.