ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates how socioeconomic status variables, particularly as indexed by family income, may help to structure the developmental pathways to which children of alcoholics (COAs) are exposed. Socioeconomic class typically is measured by one or a combination of the following factors: occupational status, individual or family income, or years of education. A number of investigators have reported that the rate of alcoholism increases as socioeconomic level, education, or income decreases. The Antisocial Behavior Checklist is a 46 item scale that asks the frequency of the respondent’s participation in a variety of aggressive and antisocial activities. The Lifetime Alcohol Problems Score assesses differences in the extent of drinking problems over the lifespan. In recent years investigators have turned increasingly to developmental systems models of addiction in an effort to understand the complex biopsychosocial organizational dynamics that create pathways to and from alcohol abuse and dependence.
