Differential relationships of family drinking with alcohol expectancy among urban school children

A representative sample of 4th and 6th graders (N = 2455) drawn from 28 public schools in an urban region of Taiwan completed a self-administered paper-and-pencil questionnaire. Each student provided information on alcohol expectancy, drinking experiences, and individual and family attributes. Complex survey analyses were performed to evaluate the relationship, with stratification by children's alcohol drinking history.An estimated 29% of the 4th graders and 43% of the 6th graders had initiated alcohol consumption (over 40% of them had drank on three or more occasions). Alcohol drinking-related differences appear in both the endorsement and the correlates of alcohol expectancy. Positive alcohol expectancy was strongly associated with family drinking, particularly the dimension of "enhanced social behaviors"; negative alcohol expectancy was inversely associated with drinking frequency. Among alcohol na？ve children, significant connections appear between paternal drinking and three dimensions of positive alcohol expectancy (i.e., enhanced social behaviors:βwt = 0.15, promoting relaxation or tension reduction:βwt = 0.18, and global positive transformation:βwt = 0.22).Individual tailored strategies that address family influences on alcohol expectancy may be needed in prevention programs targeting drinking behaviors in children.Alcohol related problems are a huge burden on national productivity in diverse populations and have taken an increasingly heavy toll on health globally [1,2]. Of particular note, alcohol-related problems seem to disproportionately affect youth and young adult populations [3,4]; regardless of region and gender, individuals between the ages of 15-29 years consistently have the highest proportion of alcohol-attributable deaths [5]. Moreover, a growing body of empirical literature suggests that alcohol use in childhood may not only increase the risks for a range of health problems, but also poses harm to long-term development and wellbeing [6,7]. Ther