Adolescent and young adult antisocial behavior and adult alcohol use disorders: A fourteen-year prospective follow-up in a national survey

Objective: Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) are u sed to examine the association between antisocial behaviors (ASB) reported in youth (15-22 years old) and alcohol use disorders (AUD) 14 years later i n a large (N = 7,326) representative national sample. Method: Structural eq uation modeling generalized to dichotomous outcomes was used to assess the associations between latent variables of ASB with latent variables of AUD a nd background variables. Results: Exploratory factor analysis of 17 ASB ite ms yielded three factors having clear interpretations with the literature-p roperty offenses, person offenses and illicit substance involvement. When e xamined in the context of the multivariate structural equation model, sever al independent associations between ASB and AUD symptoms and covariates wer e found. Although there were significant and independent effects for each A SB factor on each of the alcohol use disorder factors, the strength of the association was strongest for the effects of early illicit substance involv ement on alcohol abuse and dependence. Conclusions: Both illicit substance involvement and delinquency other than illicit substance involvement report ed in 1980 were associated with alcohol use disorders 14 years later.