Posted on July 5, 2010

African researchers have discovered that adolescents who experienced difficult childhoods are likely to start abusing alcohol as teenagers. The study, published in BioMed Central’s journal Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health, analyzed data from 9,189 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 19 living in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Malawi, and Uganda.

Dr. Caroline Kabiru and researchers from Kenya’s African Population and Health Research Center, found that nine percent of the adolescents said they had been drunk in the last year. Most of those who reported drunkenness lived in a household with little food, lived with someone who had an alcohol-use disorder, had been physically abused, or had been coerced into having sex.

Previously, there had been little research into what prompts adolescents to drink alcohol in sub-Saharan Africa. Other studies from around the world have drawn similar conclusions between childhood neglect and abuse and future alcohol consumption.

Dr. Kabiru said that their study supports the idea that children who have had traumatic experiences should be treated early, as it could help prevent alcohol abuse later in life.

Sources: BioMed Central, Graeme Baldwin, Difficult Childhoods Lead to to Teenage Drinking, July 6, 2010