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Background: The period of college represents a particularly risky developmental stage with regard to alcohol use, as college students engage in more risky drinking behaviors than their noncollege peers, and such problematic alcohol use is associated with far‐reaching negative consequences. Existing findings from genome‐wide association studies (GWAS) indicate that alcohol consumption has a complex polygenic etiology. Currently, there is a lack of studies examining genetic risk for alcohol consumption using polygenic risk scores (PRS) in college samples. In this study, we examined whether alcohol‐specific and risky behavior–related PRS were longitudinally associated with alcohol consumption among college students and whether this effect might be partially mediated by impulsivity domains. Methods: The sample included n = 2,385 European ancestry (EA) and n = 1,153 African ancestry (AA) college students assessed over the course of 4 years. To indicate genetic risk, 2 PRS were created based on recent large‐scale GWAS: alcohol consumption (Liu et al., 2019) —drinks per week (DPW)‐PRS and risky behaviors (Linnér et al., 2019) —RISK‐PRS. The main outcome was alcohol consumption, measured across 4 waves of follow‐up data. The UPPS‐P impulsivity subscales were examined as mediators of the genetic effect on alcohol consumption. Results: The results from structural equation modeling showed that among EA students, both DPW‐PRS and RISK‐PRS had significant positive effects on alcohol consumption above and beyond UPPS dimensions and control variables. RISK‐PRS explained larger portion of variance in alcohol consumption than DPW‐PRS. RISK‐PRS showed a significant indirect effect on alcohol consumption through sensation seeking and lack of perseverance; no significant indirect effect of DPW‐PRS was found. No significant association of either PRS or alcohol consumption was found for AA participants. Conclusions: The current results found that PRS related to more broadly defined risky behaviors predicted alcohol consumption across college years and that this association was partially mediated via dimensions of impulsivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Peer drinking is one of the most robust predictors of college students' alcohol use and can moderate students' genetic risk for alcohol use. Peer effect research generally suffers from 2 problems: selection into peer groups and relying more on perceptions of peer alcohol use than peers' self‐report. The goal of the present study was to overcome those limitations by capitalizing on a genetically informed sample of randomly assigned college roommates to examine multiple dimensions of peer influence and the interplay between peer effects and genetic predisposition on alcohol use, in the form of polygenic scores. Methods: We used a subsample (n = 755) of participants from a university‐wide, longitudinal study at a large, diverse, urban university. Participants reported their own alcohol use during fall and spring and their perceptions of college peers' alcohol use in spring. We matched individuals into their rooms and residence halls to create a composite score of peer‐reported alcohol use for each of those levels. We examined multiple dimensions of peer influence and whether peer influence moderated genetic predisposition to predict college students' alcohol use using multilevel models to account for clustering at the room and residence hall level. Results: We found that polygenic scores (β = 0.12), perceptions of peer drinking (β = 0.37), and roommates' self‐reported drinking (β = 0.10) predicted alcohol use (all ps < 0.001), while average alcohol use across residence hall did not (β = −0.01, p = 0.86). We found no evidence for interactions between peer influence and genome‐wide polygenic scores for alcohol use. Conclusions: Our findings underscore the importance of genetic predisposition on individual alcohol use and support the potentially causal nature of the association between peer influence and alcohol use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The first year of university attendance represents a critical time frame for the development of alcohol use and misuse given changes in autonomy and increased access to alcohol. Prior studies have demonstrated that the establishment of drinking patterns during this period is impacted by an array of demographic, environmental, and familial factors. It is critical to consider such factors jointly, and to understand potentially differential effects on stages of alcohol use/misuse, in order to identify robust predictors that may be targeted in prevention and intervention programming. Methods As part of a longitudinal study, students at a large, public U.S. university were invited to complete online surveys that included questions related to alcohol use, emotional and behavioral health, environmental factors, sociodemographic factors, and familial environment. This study uses data from surveys administered in the fall and spring of the first year of university. We used univariate (maximum N = 7,291) and multivariate (maximum N = 4,788) logistic and linear regressions to evaluate the associations between potential risk and protective factors with 4 alcohol use outcomes: initiation, consumption, problems, and addiction resistance. Results In multivariate models, we observed associations between demographic, social/environmental, and personal-level predictors with all 4 alcohol outcomes, several of which were consistent across each stage of alcohol use. A deviant high school peer group was one of the strongest predictors of risk across outcomes. The influence of drinking motives and alcohol expectancies varied by alcohol use outcome. Externalizing characteristics were associated with increased risk across outcomes, while internalizing symptoms were associated with more problems and lower addiction resistance. Conclusions These findings underscore the complex network of factors influencing stages of alcohol use during the first year of university. Importantly, these findings demonstrate that the impact of predictors changes across stages of alcohol use/misuse, which presents opportunities for targeted prevention efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study examining tobacco use and associated predictors among first year college students. Information is provided on how students were found to use multiple alternative tobacco products in addition to cigarettes, such as cigars, smokeless tobacco, and hookah. Particular attention is also given to transitions in use during the school year.