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375 Understanding the association between alcohol use and neighborhood-level factors among sexual minority groups

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2025

Wonkyung Chang
Affiliation:
University of Rochester
Chen Zhang
Affiliation:
University of Rochester
Yu Liu
Affiliation:
University of Rochester
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Abstract

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Objectives/Goals: Sexual minority populations report a disproportionately high prevalence of alcohol use, often attributed to coping with bi/homonegativity and systemic inequities across various social domains. This study aims to explore alcohol use patterns and associated neighborhood and individual factors among sexual minority populations (SMPs) using data from the NIH All of US dataset. Methods/Study Population: Alcohol use was assessed using the AUDIT-C (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test—Consumption) scale across a sample of 9,454 gay, 15,284 bisexual, 5,267 lesbian, and 349,748 straight participants. The AUDIT-C measured hazardous alcohol use, and logistic regression models were employed to examine its association with neighborhood-level factors (e.g., socioeconomic status, alcohol outlet density) and individual-level factors (e.g., age, race/ethnicity, income, and education) among SMPs. Interaction terms assessed how these relationships varied by sexual orientation. Sensitivity analyses were conducted to assess the robustness of the findings, including stratified analyses by gender identity and the exclusion of extreme outliers in alcohol use reporting. Results/Anticipated Results: Our analyses revealed that gay participants had the highest AUDIT-C scores (mean  =  3.60, SD  =  2.27), followed by bisexual (mean  =  3.35, SD  =  2.21), other SMPs (mean  =  3.18, SD  =  2.19), lesbian (mean  =  3.04, SD  =  2.08), and straight individuals (mean  =  3.05, SD  =  2.06). Alcohol use was positively associated with neighborhood disorder (β  =  0.12, 95% CI  =  0.07, 0.17), housing insecurity (β  =  0.14, 95% CI  =  0.03, 0.25), and male gender (β  =  0.98, 95% CI  =  0.96, 1.00). In contrast, neighborhood density (β  =  -0.11, 95% CI  =  -0.15, -0.07), food insecurity (β  =  -0.14, 95% CI  =  -0.20, -0.08), being Black, and identifying as bisexual were negatively associated with alcohol use. Sensitivity analyses determined no significant differences among specfic supgroups. Discussion/Significance of Impact: This study highlights important differences in alcohol use across SMPs and emphasizes the influence of neighborhood-level stressors (e.g., disorder and housing insecurity). These findings underscore the need for addressing social and environmental determinants of alcohol use in SMPs to mitigate the negative impacts of alcohol consumption.

Information

Type
Informatics, AI and Data Science
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. The Association for Clinical and Translational Science