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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

lijing Ouyang, National center on birth defects and developmental disabilities, CDC, Mail stop E88, 1600 clifton road, Atlanta, GA 30333, 4044984299, eop9@cdc.gov

This paper identifies the influences of older siblings on their younger siblings' decisions to smoke cigarettes, consume alcohol, and use marijuana. Timing of siblings' behaviors is explored to purge unobserved family and neighborhood risk factors that affect both siblings. Strong causal sibling influences are found in all three risky behaviors. The influences of siblings are greater than the effects of price and policies designed to limit youth access to cigarettes. The sibling influences offer a channel of birth order effects. Younger siblings engage in risky behaviors at younger age than did their older siblings not because they are ‘born to rebel”, but because they were subject to older siblings' risky behaviors. It follows that parental involvement in deterring earlier-borns' risky behaviors can have spillover effects on the later-borns. Outreach programs to families with multiple children are important in deterring youth risky behaviors within families.

Learning Objectives: At the conlusion of the session, the participant will be able to

• identify sibling influence on teen cigarettes smoking, alcohol drinking, and marijuana use;
• Recognize that the influences of siblings are greater than the effects of price and policies designed to limit youth access to cigarettes.
• Policy implications
  outreach programs to families with multiple children are important in deterring youth risky behaviors within families.

  Keywords: Children and Adolescents, Risk Behavior

  Presenting author's disclosure statement:

  Not Answered

  Poly-Drug Use and Co-Morbid Conditions Poster Session

  The 134th Annual Meeting & Exposition (November 4-8, 2006) of APHA