Revisiting resilience: Examining the relationships between stress, social support, and drinking behavior among black college students with parental substance use disorder histories.

The study examined the role social support plays in the relationship between life stress and problem alcohol use behavior in a sample of Black emerging adults in college with histories of parental substance use disorders (SUD). Participants were 1,007 Black emerging adult college students, recruited as part of a larger multi-wave, multisite, study investigating coping behavior among emerging adults in college. Findings suggest that Black college students with parental SUDs engage in riskier and coping motivated drinking behaviors more than those without such histories, and their alcohol use behaviors are more strongly linked to experiencing life stress, despite similar levels of perceived social support. Social support from friends and sufficient global social support help to mediate this adverse relationship. Parental SUD may serve as a readily identifiable risk factor for risky drinking behavior among Black college students. Implications for future research and clinical practice are presented.

Psychological Distress as a Primer for Sexual Risk Taking Among Emerging Adults.

Emerging adults experience increased morbidity as a result of psychological distress and risky sexual behavior. This study examines how sexual behaviors (e.g., condom use inconsistency and past year STI history) differ among emerging adults with low, moderate, and high psychological distress. Participants are 251,254 emerging adults attending colleges and universities in the United States who participated in the National College Health Assessment (NCHA). Findings suggest a dose-response relationship between psychological distress, condom use inconsistency, and past STI history, such that an association between greater psychological distress and condom use inconsistency and/or past year history of sexually transmitted infections (STIs).