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Aims: Understanding contexts in which social harms from drinking occur can help develop context-based harm reduction efforts. However, there is little knowledge of specific drinking contexts where such harms occur and whether these are gender or age specific. We aimed to investigate associations of a range of drinking contexts and social harms from drinking among young adults at age 30., Methods: We used data from 2187 30-year-old adults. Latent constructs of gender-specific drinking contexts were created using factor analysis. We performed multivariate logistic regression between drinking contexts and a range of social harms from drinking, separately by gender., Results: After accounting for social roles and binge drinking, gender-specific solitary drinking contexts ('home drinking' for men and 'daytime drinking' for women) were positively associated with marital problems and problems with other family members and friends. Conversely, 'social drinking' was not. Work-related drinking among men was associated with marital/intimate relationship problems and friendship problems. After accounting for mental health symptoms, women's home drinking was associated with marital problems., Conclusion: We found that experiences of social harms from drinking at 30 years differ depending on the drinker's gender and context. Our findings suggest that risky contexts and associated harms are still significant among 30-year-old adults, indicating that a range of gender-specific drinking contexts should be represented in harm reduction campaigns. The current findings also highlight the need to consider gender to inform context-based harm reduction measures and to widen the age target for these beyond emerging adults., (© The Author(s) 2020. Medical Council on Alcohol and Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.)

Background: Despite the growing interest in investigating social harms from drinking, little is known about drinkers' reports of these harms and their gender differences among Australian young adults at age 30. We aimed to examine gender differences of social harms from drinking as reported by drinkers. Methods: 2,200 young adults at age 30 with complete data on social harms from drinking were drawn from the 30-year follow-up of the Mater-University of Queensland Study of Pregnancy. Measures included percentages of 11 past-year drinkers' self-reported social harms stratified by gender. Logistic regression was used to examine associations between gender and each social harm, accounting for relevant confounding. Results: More than one in five young adults (22%) reported at least one social harm in the past year. Among binge drinkers, 44% reported at least one social harm. After adjustments for social roles and binge drinking, we found no gender differences on several self-reported social harms: friendship problems, people criticizing drinking, non-marital family problems, employment problems, and alcohol-fuelled fights. However, men were more likely to report spousal threats to leave, drink-driving legal problems and financial problems. Conclusions: Our findings demonstrate that young adults are still vulnerable to risky drinking at age 30 and the social harm resulting from drinking. Thus, alcohol prevention campaigns should target this age group and include women in their focus. Strategies aiming to reduce alcohol-related harms, such as screening in clinical settings for risky drinking and alcohol-related harms, followed by motivational behavior interventions, could be beneficial among these vulnerable groups.

Aims : Understanding the social contexts in which problematic drinking occurs can inform prevention strategies. In this article, we investigate gender-specific social contexts associated with problematic drinking and depression among adults aged 30 years. Because depression has been consistently linked with harmful alcohol consumption, we will also examine its association with drinking contexts. Methods : We used data from 2490 young adults who completed the 30-year follow-up phase of the Mater-University of Queensland Study of Pregnancy and its Outcomes, a prospective study commenced in 1981. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to identify latent constructs of drinking contexts stratified by gender, with subsequent regression analysis to assess the role of these contexts in problematic drinking (measured using the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test). Results : Six distinct drinking contexts were identified, which differed by gender, three for men and three for women. For both men and women, "social drinking", was associated with problematic drinking. "Home drinking" was also common to men and women but associations with problematic drinking differed, being risky only among men. "Daytime drinking" (women) was associated with risk but "work-related drinking" (men) was not. Both "home drinking" (men) and "daytime drinking" (women) were linked to depression symptoms. Conclusion : Specific contexts appeared to be associated with problematic drinking for both sexes. Among both men and women, "social drinking" was associated with problematic drinking. Both "home drinking" (men) and "daytime drinking" (women) contexts, were associated with problematic drinking and depressive symptoms. Targeted alcohol-focused interventions need to address co-occurring mental health issues.

Importance: Increases in alcohol use in young women over recent decades are shown by national survey data but have yet to be replicated using prospective data., Objective: To compare change in alcohol use over a generation of young women born in Australia from 1981 to 1983 at 21 years with that of their mothers at the same age., Design, Setting, and Participants: Data came from the Mater University Study of Pregnancy, a prospective prebirth cohort study that recruited all pregnant mothers attending a hospital in Brisbane, Australia, from 1981 to 1983. The analyses were restricted to 1053 mothers who were aged 18 to 25 years of age at the baseline measurement and their daughters who were between the same ages when assessed 21 years later., Main Outcome and Measure: Assessing the increase in the same prospective measures of 4 levels of alcohol use between mothers and daughters., Results: Multinomial logistic regression for clustered data indicated daughters were at greater odds of consuming high (odds ratio [OR] = 5.68 [95% CI, 4.24-7.57]) and moderate (OR = 2.81 [95% CI, 2.18-3.63]) levels of alcohol than their mothers. Not having a dependent child roughly doubled the odds of all levels of drinking in both cohorts. Undertaking or completing tertiary education had no effect on consumption. There was an interaction between mothers' or daughters' drinking and partner status (χ23 = 12.56; P = .007); having a partner doubled the daughters' odds of consuming high levels of alcohol (no partner: OR = 0.51 [95% CI, 0.31-0.80]) while the odds of drinking at the highest level were more than 5 times for mothers who were single (OR = 5.65 [95% CI, 2.99-12.35])., Conclusions and Relevance: To our knowledge, we provide the first longitudinal evidence confirming that female alcohol use has dramatically increased over a generation, especially at higher levels of drinking. Later age at child bearing contributed to this increase and the relationship between alcohol use and having a partner was found to reverse alcohol consumption across the 2 generations.