Effects of a federal housing voucher experiment on adolescent binge drinking: a secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial

Aims To test how a housing voucher generating residential mobility to lower‐poverty neighborhoods, compared with public housing controls, influenced adolescent binge drinking, and whether gender modified effects. Design A multi‐site household‐level three‐arm randomized trial of a housing intervention executed 1994–98, evaluated 2001–02. Setting Five US cities: Baltimore, MD; Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; Los Angeles, CA; and New York, NY. Participants A total of 3537 adolescents in 4248 low‐income eligible families were randomized; 2829 adolescents were analyzed at the interim evaluation (1950 in treatment; 879 in the control group). Attrition bias was accounted for with a 3‐in‐10 oversampling of hard‐to‐reach participants (effective response rate: 89%). Interventions The Moving to Opportunity (MTO) trial randomized volunteer low‐income families in public housing to receive (1) rental subsidies redeemable in neighborhoods with