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Background and Aims If socio-economic disadvantage is associated with more adolescent smoking, but less participation in tertiary education, and smoking and tertiary education are both associated with heavier drinking, these may represent opposing pathways to heavy drinking. This paper examines contextual variation in the magnitude and direction of these associations. Design Comparing cohort studies. Setting United Kingdom. Participants Participants were from the 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS58; n = 15 672), the British birth cohort study (BCS70; n = 12 735) and the West of Scotland Twenty-07 1970s cohort (T07; n = 1515). Measurements Participants self-reported daily smoking and weekly drinking in adolescence (age 16 years) and heavy drinking (> 14/21 units in past week) in early adulthood (ages 22-26 years). Parental occupational class (manual versus non-manual) indicated socio-economic background. Education beyond age 18 was coded as tertiary. Models were adjusted for parental smoking and drinking, family structure and adolescent psychiatric distress. Findings Respondents from a manual class were more likely to smoke and less likely to enter tertiary education (e.g. in NCDS58, probit coefficients were 0.201 and -0.765, respectively; P < 0.001 for both) than respondents from a non-manual class. Adolescent smokers were more likely to drink weekly in adolescence (0.346; P < 0.001) and more likely to drink heavily in early adulthood (0.178; P < 0.001) than adolescent non-smokers. Respondents who participated in tertiary education were more likely to drink heavily in early adulthood (0.110 for males, 0.182 for females; P < 0.001 for both) than respondents with no tertiary education. With some variation in magnitude, these associations were consistent across all three cohorts. Conclusions In Britain, young adults are more likely to drink heavily both if they smoke and participate in tertiary education (college and university) despite socio-economic background being associated in opposite directions with these risk factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: To measure the association between problem gambling severity and 19 different gambling activities among emerging adults (aged 16–26). Design: An online non‐probability longitudinal survey collecting data in two waves: wave 1, July/August 2019; wave 2, July/October 2020. Setting: Great Britain Participants: A total of 2080 young adults participating in both waves. Measurements Problem gambling scores were collected using the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI). Binary variables recorded past year participation in 19 different gambling forms, ranging from lotteries to online casino and gambling‐like practices within digital games (e.g. loot box purchase, skin betting). Controls included socio‐demographic/economic characteristics, the Eysenck Impulsivity Scale and the number of gambling activities undertaken. Findings Zero inflated negative binomial model lacked evidence of an effect between past year participation in any individual activities and subsequent PGSI scores. However, negative binomial random effects models for current gamblers (n = 497) showed that skin betting (incidence‐rate ratio [IRR] = 2.32; 95% CI = 1.69–3.19), fixed odd betting terminals (IRR = 2.21, 95% CI = 1.61–3.05), slot/fruit machines (IRR = 1.43, 95% CI = 1.07–1.91), online betting on horse/dog races (IRR = 1.53, 95% CI = 1.17–2.00) and online betting on non‐sports events (IRR = 1.44, 95% CI = 1.11–1.89) were associated with increased PGSI scores. Online casino gambling had a significant interaction by wave; the impact of online casino betting in wave 2 on PGSI scores increased by a factor of 1.61. Conclusions: Past year participation of young adults (aged 16–26) in certain forms of gambling does not appear to be associated with future Problem Gambling Severity Index scores. Among young adults who are current gamblers, past year participation in certain land‐based (e.g. electronic gaming machines) and online forms (e.g. skin betting) of gambling appears to be strongly associated with elevated Problem Gambling Severity Index scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]