Comparing Risky Behaviours Among Teenagers With Native or Immigrant Parents in Italy

Investigating adolescent risky behaviours from different cultural backgrounds helps understand societal differences. This study assesses the correlation between the cultural background and risky behaviours among adolescents in Italy, considering the migrant status and the geographical/cultural area of the maternal birthplace. Ordinal-logistic regressions were employed to analyse alcohol consumption, smoking cigarettes and binge drinking in an Italian nationally representative sample (58,976 obs.) from the HBSC 2018 survey. Results indicate that 1.5- and second-generation immigrants are less likely than “native” Italians to drink alcohol/smoke cigarettes. In binge drinking, only second-generation migrants are less at risk. No significant difference was found between the 1.5- and the second-generation. We see several differences for geographical/cultural backgrounds compared to the reference category Catholic-Europe. These findings show that certain groups of immigrant adolescents are at less risk than natives. Policymakers should consider how patterns of adolescent risky behaviours vary by immigrant background when designing prevention programs.