REPORT: Black Youth Less Likely to Consume Alcohol Than White Peers
A recent study examined alcohol consumption of children, and the results are alarming.
By age 8, 37 percent of the children studied had sipped alcohol. That number jumped to 66 percent by age 12, and 96 percent by the age of 18.
But interestingly enough, black youth are far less likely to consume alcohol than their white peers.
Instead, only 18 percent of 8.5-year-old Black children sipped alcohol compared with 44 percent of White children, the study notes. And at age 11, 36 percent of Black children were light drinkers compared with 57 percent of White kids.
The differences, which lead researcher, John E. Donovan, attributes to factors such as stronger parental disapproval of teen drinking in African-American families, the lower response of African-American teens to peer pressure, and the greater influence of religiosity in African-American families, is consistent with earlier research.
“Studies have shown that the African-American culture may hold more conservative views about drinking compared to the majority culture in the United States,” said Sarah L. Pedersen, assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, who authored a study in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research last November.
Read more at the Huffington Post
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