This study investigates whether health behaviors of young adults are influenced by different socio-economic contexts in which they grow up during adolescence.

Existing literature looks at only one socio-economic context at time. We take into account that an adolescent is embedded in multiple contexts that jointly influence his/her behaviors. Therefore we examine how the socio-economic status (SES) of family, friends and school during adolescence are associated with smoking, drinking and marijuana use in young adulthood.

Using the Add Health data in the United States, we find that the SES of an adolescent’s family, friends and school are mildly correlated. Our multilevel analyses show that young adults are more likely to smoke if they attended disadvantaged schools. Conversely, drinking and using marijuana are positively associated with the family SES. Moreover, those individuals who did not reach the same educational level of their parents are more likely to drink and use marijuana.