Potential Causal Influence of Neighborhood Disadvantage on Disordered Gambling: Evidence From a Multilevel Discordant Twin Design

Abstract

The quality of the neighborhood in which one lives has been linked to disordered gambling (DG), but whether this reflects a causal relation has not yet been empirically examined. Participants were 3,450 Australian twins who completed assessments of past-year DG and personality and for whom census-derived indicators of disadvantage were used to characterize their neighborhood. Multilevel models were employed to estimate within-twin-pair and between-twin-pair effects of neighborhood disadvantage on DG, with the within-twin-pair effect representing a potentially causal association and the between-twin-pair effect representing a noncausal association. There was robust evidence for a potentially causal (as well as a noncausal) effect of neighborhood disadvantage on DG; in contrast, parallel analyses of past-year alcohol-use disorder (AUD) failed to find evidence of a potentially causal effect. These results support efforts focused on identifying the active ingredients contributing to the effect of neighborhood disadvantage on DG and developing interventions to limit their impact.