In addition to sociodemographic characteristics, several
studies have shown that high school drinking patterns are
highly predictive of college drinking patterns; however,
surprisingly few longitudinal studies have been conducted
on the risk factors for escalation of drinking during
the transition from high school to the first year of college.
The Monitoring the Future survey, while very useful for
describing trends in drinking and identifying differences
between college and non-college attending peers [12,19],
is limited in scope with respect to possible predictors of
college drinking patterns. Baer et al. [23] observed that
being male, having Greek system affiliations, and having
conduct problems were risk factors for increased drinking
in college among a selected sample of 366 high school
students who were heavy drinkers. Sher and Rutledge [24]
conducted a much larger study of over 3,000 college students
using a systematic sampling design, and found a
high degree of continuity in the level of alcohol consumption
between high school and the first semester of college.
Moreover, 54% of the variance in heavy college drinking
could be predicted by sex, race, pre-college cigarette use,
religiosity, peer drinking norms and ease of obtaining
alcohol in high school.
None of the aforementioned longitudinal studies
explored whether pre-college parenting practices influence
the risk for drinking in college students, despite the
substantial body of literature demonstrating the important
influences of family characteristics, especially parental
drinking behaviors, parent-child relationships,
communication, and parental monitoring, on the risk for
underage alcohol use [25-29]. Using both cross-sectional
and prospective designs, studies have consistently demonstrated
that effective parenting practices have a strong
impact on reducing the risk of early adolescent alcohol
consumption. Different facets of effective parenting have
all been shown to be important, including parental monitoring
and supervision, expression of unambiguous disapproval
of underage drinking, and low levels of parentchild
hostility. For example, Nash et al. [30] studied a
cohort of high school students (all in 9th grade at the start
of the study) and found that higher levels of parental disapproval
of alcohol use were associated with lower levels
of alcohol use in 12th grade, as compared to students
whose parents had low levels of disapproval. The results
of that study also suggested that the effects of parental disapproval
were mediated by lower levels of peer influence
over drinking behaviors [30]. Additionally, Chilcoat and
Anthony [31] evaluated 8 to 10 year old children during a
three-year period and found that increased levels of parental
monitoring and supervision were associated with a
1.6-fold reduction in drug use initiation even holding
constant baseline monitoring. In that study, adolescents
in the highest parental monitoring quartile experienced a
2-year delay in the onset of drug use compared to adolescents
in the lowest quartile of parental monitoring. Similarly,
Guo et al. [32] studied a youth cohort from age 10
through 21 and observed that clear rules and close parental
monitoring during early adolescence were associated