Abstract
Background
Although studies have investigated the association between alcohol use and violent behaviors such as weapon carrying, few studies have examined the association between age at first alcohol use and weapon-carrying among adolescents. The objective of this study was to investigate the association between age at first alcohol use and weapon carrying among adolescents.
Methods
Data for this study came from the 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. An analytic sample of 13,442 adolescents aged 14–18 years old (51% female) was analyzed using binary logistic regression. The outcome variable investigated in this study was weapon carrying during the past 30 days, and the main explanatory variable investigated was age at first alcohol use.
Results
Of the 13,442 adolescents, 13.5% carried a weapon during the past 30 days, and 15.4% reported having their first alcoholic drink before age 13. In the multivariable logistic regression, adolescents who reported having alcohol before age 13 had more than double the odds of carrying a weapon when compared to those who never had alcohol before age 13 (AOR = 2.32, p < .001, 95% CI = 1.87-2.89). Other significant factors associated with weapon carrying include male gender, victim of bullying, teen dating violence, sexual violence, suicidal ideation, and history of substance use. Adolescents who self-identified as Black/African American or Hispanic were significantly less likely to carry a weapon when compared to adolescents who self-identified as non-Hispanic White.
Conclusion
The findings of this study underscore the importance of developing age appropriate intervention strategies to curb early initiation of alcohol use and weapon carrying among adolescents.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-15-2021
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2021.100820
Related Content
This paper is based on publicly available data from the 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Repository Citation
Baiden, Philip; Jahan, Nusrat; Onyeaka, Henry K.; Thrasher, Shawndaya; Tadeo, Savarra; and Findley, Erin, "Age at First Alcohol Use and Weapon Carrying among Adolescents: Findings from the 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey" (2021). Social Work Graduate Research. 1.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/csw_gradpub/1
Notes/Citation Information
Published in SSM - Population Health, v. 15, 100820.
© 2021 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).