Abstract

    This study provides detailed information on the incidence of intoxication by teen girls and boys, and also analytical results for childhood determinants of teen intoxication, other high-risk behaviours, civic and family repercussions, and the teen's well-being and prospects.

    Intoxication rates are about the same for girls and boys, 61% and 62%, respectively, though they vary considerably by subpopulation. The rates (percentage intoxicated past year) increase with age from 38% for 14- plus 15-year-olds to 76% for 18- plus 19-year-olds.

    Intoxication is related to other health-risk activities and destructive community engagement. Intoxication rates are much higher among teens who in the preceding year sold illicit drugs (97% vs. 57% for others), smoked marijuana (88% vs. 31%), or used LSD or acid (96% vs. 54%). These rates are fairly similar for girls and boys.

    Teens who in the preceding year have been questioned by the police about something done are much more likely to have been intoxicated in the preceding year than their counterparts who had not been questioned (82% vs. 56%). Almost the same percentages apply to teens who admit to having damaged something belonging to others in the preceding year.

    Intoxication rates are inversely related to well-being. They are lower for teens who strongly agree that they are happy with life (55% vs. 64% for others), and that the next five years look good (57% vs. 63%). Again, these intoxication rates for girls and boys are quite similar.

    Several childhood factors are found that seem related to future intoxication rates, factors applying to the child, parents, family, neighbourhood and school. For example, in homes in which the parents did not drink alcohol, where they worshipped weekly and volunteered, and read with the child daily, the child, boy or girl, turned out to be less likely to be intoxicated than the average girl or boy.

    A parent might assume that if he sent his child to church each Sunday then the child would be sure to be less prone to intoxication when a teen. While this is so, it is important that the parent worship as well. It is not only weekly attendance at church that is important, but also the parent worshiping with the child, at least from the viewpoint of future intoxication rates.

    In modelling, intoxication and 41 other teen behaviours and situations are related to the child's age and worship frequency, the main parent's age, sex, marital status, faith affiliation (evangelical faith or other/none), heavy drinking sessions and educational attainment, and the family's region of residence (Ontario being the reference region).

    The frequency of intoxication is lower for girls if the main parent is evangelical, and higher the more frequently the main parent drank heavily, if the main parent was cohabiting rather than being married or a single parent, and if the family lived in the Atlantic provinces rather than Ontario or Quebec. The frequency of intoxication of boys is less, the more often the boy worshipped as a child, and the evangelical variable is close to significant implying the evangelical factor (worship plus denomination) has a strong deterrent effect on intoxication.