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Associations Between Positive Childhood Experiences and Adult Smoking and Alcohol Use Behaviors in a Large Statewide Sample

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Abstract

Childhood experiences are linked to myriad indices of health and wellbeing in adulthood, including substance use behaviors. Increasingly, there has been a paradigm shift in prevention science focused on healthy outcomes of positive experiences. The current study examined associations between retrospective reports of positive childhood experiences and patterns of smoking and alcohol use in adulthood. Data were from the 2019 Montana Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey (N = 6,495; Mage = 55.9 years; 49% male as assigned at birth). Outcomes examined with regard to positive childhood experiences included lifetime smoking (> 100 cigarettes), current smoking status, and past-month alcohol use indices (i.e., total drinks, typical quantity, heavy episodic drinking, and peak drinking occasion). Positive childhood experience scores were inversely associated with both smoking outcomes (AORs = 0.66 and 0.61). Curiously, positive childhood experiences were positively associated with any past-month alcohol use (AOR = 1.12), but among respondents who did use alcohol in the past month, positive childhood experiences were inversely associated with all indices of alcohol use patterns: total drinks (CR = 0.94), drinks per occasion (CR = 0.95), heavy episodic occasions (AOR = 0.91), and peak drinking (AOR = 0.95). Findings generally indicated that positive childhood experiences may be protective against cigarette and high-risk alcohol use behaviors in adulthood. Item-by-item analyses identified specific childhood experiences that may be particularly protective, which may inform prevention efforts and policy (prevention recommendations are discussed below).

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Acknowledgements

A special ‘thank you’ is owed to Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies, The Montana Coalition, Inc., for their efforts that resulted in access to Montana data and for their leadership in advocating that PCEs questions were included in the BRFSS data.

Funding

This publication was supported in part by CFDA 93.136 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The views and opinions contained do not necessarily reflect those of the CDC or the Montana Department of Health and Human Services, and should not be construed as such.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington, Box 357238, Seattle, WA, 98195, USA

    Scott Graupensperger & Jason R. Kilmer

  2. The Montana Institute, Bozeman, MT, USA

    Donovan C. D. Olson & Jeffrey W. Linkenbach

Authors
  1. Scott Graupensperger
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  2. Jason R. Kilmer
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  3. Donovan C. D. Olson
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  4. Jeffrey W. Linkenbach
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Contributions

All four authors contributed to all phases of the research procedures.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Scott Graupensperger.

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Conflicts of interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Ethical Approval

Data are from the Behavioral Risk Factors Surveillance System (BRFSS); which is a publicly available health research database funded by the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Data from BRFSS have no individually identifiable information, and do not meet the requirements of human subjects research as defined by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; therefore, no ethical approval was needed for the current study.

Informed Consent

All participants completed informed consent as part of the BRFSS data collection.

Availability of Data and Material

BRFSS data is publicly available, though these specific data for the state of Montana are held by the Montana Office of Epidemiology and Scientific Support.

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Graupensperger, S., Kilmer, J.R., Olson, D.C.D. et al. Associations Between Positive Childhood Experiences and Adult Smoking and Alcohol Use Behaviors in a Large Statewide Sample. J Community Health 48, 260–268 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10900-022-01155-8

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