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Alcohol Use Disorder Risk and Protective Factors and Associated Harms Among Pacific Islander Young Adults

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Abstract

Pacific Islander (PI) young adults (age 18 to 30 years) experience elevated rates of hazardous drinking, AUDs, and alcohol-related harms. Yet, we know little about the risk and protective factors that drive, or can prevent, PI young adult hazardous drinking behaviors and AUDs due to a lack of targeted alcohol disparities research. This large qualitative study presents data from 8 focus groups with 69 PIs (51 young adults, 18 informal providers) to explore the major risk factors, protective factors, and negative consequences associated with PI young adult hazardous drinking and AUDs. Findings revealed (1) major risk factors including the presence of significant life stressors that trigger alcohol self-medication, peer/social pressure to drink, permissive drinking norms, and frequent access to alcohol and (2) negative consequences involving physical fights, health and relationship problems, harm to personal reputation, and community harms including driving-under-the-influence and sexual violence. Protective factors against hazardous drinking and AUDs included the cultural norm of protecting the family’s reputation by avoiding AUDs, church/religious faith, family responsibilities, and culturally relevant prosocial activities (e.g., sports, dance, choir). Obtaining this in-depth data revealed that an effective culturally grounded AUD prevention intervention for PI young adults—which does not currently exist—should (1) target these identified major risk factors for AUDs, while (2) integrating culturally responsive strategies that incorporate their reported protective factors.

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Data Availability

De-identified data (e.g., transcripts) will be made available to individual investigators upon request.

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Funding

This project was supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (R21AA026689). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health, or any other funding entities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Medicine, Population, and Public Health, School of Medicine, University of California, Riverside, 900 University Ave, Riverside, CA, 92521, USA

    Andrew M. Subica & Howard B. Moss

  2. Research to End Healthcare Disparities Corp, I-Lead Institute, Santa Monica, USA

    Erick G. Guerrero

  3. School of Public Policy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA

    Phong Hong

  4. College of Health, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA

    Nia Aitaoto

  5. Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Derek K. Iwamoto

  6. School of Medicine, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Li-Tzy Wu

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  1. Andrew M. Subica
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  3. Phong Hong
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  4. Nia Aitaoto
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  5. Howard B. Moss
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  7. Li-Tzy Wu
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Contributions

All authors except PH conceptualized this study. AS, EG, and PH analyzed the data. AS wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors refined subsequent drafts of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Andrew M. Subica.

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This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University of California, Riverside, and was performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments.

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All participants provided written informed consent to participate in this study.

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No personally identifiable information is included in this study or the reporting of data. Thus, consent to publish identifying information was not obtained from participants.

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Subica, A.M., Guerrero, E.G., Hong, P. et al. Alcohol Use Disorder Risk and Protective Factors and Associated Harms Among Pacific Islander Young Adults. J. Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities 9, 1818–1827 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-021-01118-0

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