Societal spirits in the silver streak: Unraveling complexity in drinking habits of the mature adult population

Abstract

Background

The complex interactions between an individual's drinking behavior and their social environment is crucial but understudied, particularly in mature adult populations. Our aim is to unravel these complexities by investigating how personal drinking patterns are related to those of one's social environment over time, and what the interplay is with personal factors such as occupational prestige and smoking behavior.

Method

The present study adopts an innovative graphical autoregressive (GVAR) panel network modeling approach to investigate the dynamics between personal drinking habits and social environmental factors, utilizing a comprehensive longitudinal dataset from the Framingham Heart Study with a large sample of predominantly mature adults (N = 1719–5718) connected within a social network. We explored both temporal and contemporaneous associations between individuals' drinking habits (self-reported), smoking behavior (self-reported), perceived job prestige (Treiman prestige score), and the drinking behaviors of their social environment. The latter consists of the proportion of abstaining, moderate drinking, and heavy drinking social connections of each subject.

Results

Our findings reveal significant associations between participants' behavior and that of their peers, with reciprocal interactions, substantiating the importance of the influence of one's social network for mature individuals. We found dynamic, reciprocal associations between an individual's drinking behavior and that of their peers, with periods of increased or decreased drinking correlating with increased connections to heavy drinkers or abstainers, respectively. In addition, when individuals drink more than usual, they also tend to consume more cigarettes, and vice versa.

Conclusions

The reciprocal feedback loops identified between an individual's drinking behavior and their social environment highlight the crucial role of social influences in shaping drinking behavior, including among older people. This emphasizes the need to consider social elements in the development of future theories, models, and interventions aimed at addressing problematic alcohol consumption in this vulnerable population.