Prospective Associations Between Stressors and Alcohol Use From Early Adolescence to Young Adulthood in Mexican-Origin Youth in the United States

Stressors experienced acrossmultiple domains (e.g., family and peers) may contribute to alcohol use trajectories; however, little is known about the longitudinal links between stressors and alcohol use among Latinx youth. Guided by prior work on stressors and alcohol use, the present study used longitudinal data to examine whether Mexican-origin adolescents’ (N = 674; 50% female; 28% Mexico born; 72% U.S. born) experiences of family and peer stressors across early to middle adolescence (M_age = 10.86, SDage = 0.51) predicted trajectories of alcohol use frequency and binge drinking from middle adolescence to young adulthood (M_age = 23.17, SD_age = 0.59). Using two strategies for modeling stressors, we report results that showed more support for stressors across early adolescence as predictors of alcohol use trajectories when stressors were modeled as growth trajectories versus modeled as distal and proximal stressors. Findings underscore the need to consider strategies to attenuate the longitudinal links between stressors and alcohol use among Mexican-origin youth.