Social Norms, Social Capital and Alcohol Use in Mexican Adolescents

The concept of social capital is used in this article to characterize social norms and values among high school students. The assumption behind this concept is that social interaction resulting of youths’ membership to several social groups (i.e. family, school, church, sport clubs, gangs) might have mixed effects in adolescents’ alcohol-related values and behaviors.  

We analyzed data of 520 students younger than 18 years enrolled in high schools in Guanajuato. Using multiple logistic regressions we studied the association between social norms and two measurements of alcohol intake -the use of alcohol the last 30 days and the use of 5 or more drinking at once, the last 30 days.

Perceiving that 50 percent or more of students use alcohol, having friends with positive attitude about participant’s getting drunk and connecting alcohol use with having fun were associated with an increase in the odds of alcohol use among participants. Although variation in alcohol related values across geographic areas were observed, females attending school in the Guanajuato municipality, were in the highest risk of alcohol intake when comparing with females in other places. Social cohesion, assessed with the sense belonging to school, was associated with a reduction of the 30-day alcohol intake (AOR 0.57, 95% CI 0.37-0.88). While a reduction in the odds of alcohol intake were also observed when both parent were in the household (AOR 0.46, 95% CI 0.26-0.80), the absence of one or both parents due to international migration was not associated with alcohol intake among participants.