Abstract B01: The role of social support in alcohol consumption and alcohol dependence
Authors: Cole Lauren E. , Peters Edward S. , Trapido Edward J. 
Published: October 2015

Introduction: Alcohol consumption is associated with increased risk for some cancers, such as oral cavity, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, liver and female breast cancers. Along with genetic factors, the psychosocial environment elevates the proclivity for high alcohol consumption and dependence. We examined whether social support, an important feature of the psychosocial environment, influences alcohol consumption and alcohol dependence.

Methods: We analyzed baseline alcohol and psychosocial environment data in the Women and Their Children's Health Study, which has enrolled over 2,800 women residing in seven coastal Louisiana parishes affected by the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. A comprehensive telephone interview was used to ascertain alcohol consumption, alcohol dependence and social support. We utilized multinomial logistic regression to estimate odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals for the association between social support and alcohol consumption/alcohol dependence. Alcohol consumption/alcohol dependence was defined using the following categories: never drinkers, current drinkers without alcohol dependence, and alcohol dependence as defined by the CAGE questionnaire. Age, race and depression were considered as confounders a priori, and we evaluated income, education, current employment status, oil spill exposure, smoking status, self-efficacy and marital status as potential confounders.

Results: After restricting the dataset to subjects with available data on all predictors, 2,336 women were included in the analysis. The mean age was 44.8 years, with 57.3% of the population White. 69.9% of the cohort were non-drinkers, 28.1% reported currently drinking alcohol but did not classify as alcohol dependent, and 2.0% classified as alcohol dependent. We observed that women with low social support were significantly less likely to drink alcohol compared to women with high social support (aOR=0.69; 95% CI=0.53-0.88). Although not significant, a similar relationship for social support was seen when comparing alcohol dependent women and non-drinkers (aOR=0.60; 95% CI=0.28-1.28). In addition, we observed that depressed women were significantly less likely to be current drinkers compared to non-depressed women (aOR=0.78; 95% CI=0.62-0.98). However, depressed women were significantly more likely to be alcohol dependent (aOR=3.26; 95% CI=1.74, 6.10).

Conclusion: Our data suggests that women with low social support are less likely to drink alcohol and to be less dependent on alcohol. Therefore, we infer that high social support may in fact confer elevated drinking behaviors among women. Since alcohol is a component cause for several cancers and the control of alcohol intake should reduce incidence and mortality of these cancers, identification and understanding of the modifiable social factors responsible for alcohol intake is also critical in the prevention of alcohol related cancers.

Citation Format: Lauren E. Cole, Edward S. Peters, Edward J. Trapido. The role of social support in alcohol consumption and alcohol dependence. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research; 2014 Sep 27-Oct 1; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Can Prev Res 2015;8(10 Suppl): Abstract nr B01.