Alcohol Use Severity among Hispanic Emerging Adults: Examining the Roles of Bicultural Self-efficacy and Acculturation

Recent alcohol use was reported among suicides in 46 percent of Native Americans, 30 percent of Hispanics, 26 percent of Whites, 16 percent of Blacks, and 15 percent of Asians. Among those tested for alcohol, the rates of intoxication (BAC higher than or equal to 0.08) were highest for Native Americans (37 percent), followed by Hispanics (29 percent), Whites (24 percent), Blacks (14 percent), and Asians (12 percent). Age-groups identified as being at high risk for alcohol-involved suicide included Native Americans ages 30 to 39 (54 percent of suicide victims had BACs higher than or equal to 0.08), Native Americans and Hispanics ages 20 to 29 (50 percent and 37 percent, respectively), and Asians ages 10 to 19 (29 percent). Males were at higher risk than female drinkers in all ethnic groups except Native Americans; the percentages of alcohol intoxication among Native American suicides were equal for males and females (37 percent).

Focus On: Ethnicity and the Social and Health Harms From Drinking

Collins and McNair (2002) report that a woman’s drinking patterns are influenced by the cultural norms and practices of the ethnic groups to which they belong. In our recent analyses, we found several significant interactions between national group and acculturation level. For example, among women in all national groups, the mean number of drinks consumed per week increased with level of acculturation (statistically significant only for Mexican American and D/SC American women in relation to low vs. high acculturation). Higher frequencies of binge drinking of one or more times per month were found among Puerto Rican women of low and high levels of acculturation.

Alcohol-Related Mortality Outcomes

Weekly heavy drinking what is tom arnold doing now was highest among Native Americans (21.9 percent), followed by Blacks (16.4 percent), Whites (16.3 percent), Hispanics (11.8 percent), and Asians (9.8 percent). The sample for these estimates of drinking volume was the U.S. population of Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics and included abstainers. However, a study by Mulia and colleagues (2009) of current drinkers in the United States showed that Whites consumed less alcohol than Hispanics and more than Blacks. The differences between these two studies could reflect a higher rate of abstinence from alcohol among Hispanics (25.7 percent) compared with Whites (13.4 percent) in the U.S. population (Chen et al. 2006). The study that included abstainers (Caetano et al. 2010), who by definition consume zero drinks, showed higher drinking volume for Whites, whereas the study excluding abstainers (Mulia et al. 2009) reported higher volume for Hispanics. Other ethnic minority groups with higher abstinence rates include Blacks (24.7 percent) and Asians (39.1 percent).

The Hispanic population is now the largest minority group in the United States, and it also was the fastest growing minority group with an increase of 3.3% between 2007 and 2008 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2008b). This minority group is expected to increase from 15 to 30% of the US population by 2050, nearly tripling from 46.7 to 132.8 million (U.S. Census Bureau, 2008a). Recent estimates indicate that most Hispanics are of Mexican origin (64%), followed by Puerto Rican (9.6%), Central American (7.2%), other Hispanics/Latinos (6.7%), South American (5.5%), Cuban (3.6%), and Dominican (2.6%). Further, Hispanic Americans are a young population, with one-third (34.3%) being less than 18 years of age, compared with 26% of the total US population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2007). Preparation of this article was supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism K01 AA025992 and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities U54 MD002266, U54 MD012393, K01 MD013770. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official view of the National Institutes of Health.

Descriptive Analyses

On the other hand, in Miami-Dade County, approximately 69% of the population is Hispanic, 50% of the population is composed of immigrants from Latin America, 67% of adults report speaking Spanish at home, and 53.6% of Hispanics are of Cuban heritage (U.S. Census Bureau, 2017b, 2017c). An example the demonstrates the cultural and economic interconnectedness between Miami-Dade County and Latin America is that Miami is often referred to as the “Gateway of the Americas” (National Tour Association, 2004). Studies that explicitly operationalize area-based measures of structural racism, including segregation and redlining, could help the field move beyond purely descriptive analysis of racial and ethnic composition in relation to alcohol-related mortality. Analysis of the political context also was lacking, and studies of how gerrymandering and state actions designed to increase or decrease racial and ethnic segregation may impact mortality due to alcohol use also would be informative. In future research, attention to both subgroup differences and pathways from racism and discrimination to alcohol-related mortality would advance efforts to improve community health.

Infectious Diseases

1. Despite overall low rates of alcohol consumption for Asians/Pacific Islanders in the U.S. population, some subpopulations within this group show alarmingly high rates of drinking.
2. Alcohol research in the United States paid fragmented attention to the implications of race and ethnicity prior to 1984, with early alcohol surveys focusing primarily on drinking for individuals of European descent (Caetano 1984; Dawson 1998).
3. Participants were interviewed in their preferred language with a questionnaire that underwent a detailed Spanish translation and back-translation process.
4. For some context, we briefly describe some characteristics of Maricopa County, Arizona, and Miami-Dade County, Florida which are the two communities of settlement included in the present study.
5. Puerto Rican and Mexican American men are more likely to consume a higher number of drinks on average and also engage in more binge drinking compared with their Cuban or D/SC American counterparts.

With regard to females, drinking rates were similar across all four national groups, with the exception of higher abstention rate among Mexican American women. The higher rate of overall drinking among Puerto Rican women compared with other women is difficult to explain as alcohol research on Puerto Ricans is sparse. For instance, Puerto Rico is part of a commonwealth with the United States, and Puerto Ricans hold American citizenship. It is possible that increased contact with the United States, which has more liberal norms for drinking by women, has led to a liberalization of norms among Puerto Ricans that is not seen in other Hispanic groups. Two-way interaction with study site moderating the association between U.S. orientation and alcohol use severity. Examining interactions between acculturation and bicultural self-efficacy would not only deepen our understanding of bicultural self-efficacy, but it would also advance our understanding of substance use behavior among ethnic minorities.

Most women (88 percent) who reported being pregnant and also a drinker at any point in the past 12 months indicated that they did not drink during pregnancy. Rates of past-year alcohol abuse (0.8 percent to 2.3 percent) and dependence (1.2 percent to 2.8 percent) were similar and low in White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian pregnant women. Binge drinking and alcohol consumption without binge drinking among pregnant women were highest in Whites (21.1 percent and 45.0 percent, respectively) compared with other ethnic groups (0 percent to 10.7 percent and 21.0 percent to 37.3 percent). However, other studies found that Black, Hispanic, and Asian women were less likely to reduce or quit heavy drinking after becoming pregnant (Morris et al. 2008; Tenkku et al. 2009).