The Dual Burden of Emerging Adulthood: Gambling-Related Harm and Mental Health (Gavriel-Fried et al., 2024)

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Full citation

Gavriel-Fried, B., Keinan-Rozental, M., Dor, M., & Zerach, G. (2024). The dual burden of emerging adulthood: Gambling-related harm and mental health. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 21(6), 702. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph21060702

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Region & Target Population

• ‍Region: Israel.‍
• Target population: Emerging adults (18–25 years) and Older adults (30+), as a comparison group.

Study Design

• Cross-sectional, age-stratified national survey of adults who had gambled.
• Compares gambling severity, gambling-related harm, and mental health across age groups.

Sample Characteristics

• Total N = 3,244 Israeli adults.
  
  • Emerging adults (18–25): n = 740.
  • Over-30 adults: n = 2,504.
• All participants reported lifetime gambling; subsamples reported past-year gambling.

Data Collection Timeline

• Single timepoint (no longitudinal follow-up).
• Conducted in July–September mid-2022, via an online survey panel in a context where online gambling is widely accessible, and the COVID-19 period had recently intensified digital behaviors.

Measures Used

• Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) for gambling severity.
• Gambling-Related Harm (GRH) checklist to measure financial, relational, and psychological harms.
• Standardized self-report scales for depression and anxiety (validated Hebrew versions).
• Gambling behavior: frequency, types of games, expenditure.
• Demographics (age, gender, income, etc.).

Research Question

Do emerging adults experience greater gambling-related harm and problem gambling severity than older adults, and are these age differences explained by higher levels of depression and anxiety?

Key Findings

• Emerging adults showed higher gambling-related harm and higher problem gambling severity compared with adults aged 30+.
• Among emerging adults who gambled in the past year:
  
  • Nearly half reported past-year gambling.
    
  • A sizeable minority fell into moderate-risk or problem gambling categories (approx. 12% combined).
• Emerging adults reported higher depression and anxiety scores than older adults.
• Mediation analyses:
  
  • Depression and anxiety fully mediated the relationship between younger age and gambling-related harm.
  • They also mediated the association between younger age and problem gambling severity.

Study Conclusion

The study frames emerging adulthood as a period of “dual burden”: young adults not only show higher rates of gambling-related harm and more severe gambling problems, but they also experience poorer mental health than older adults. Crucially, the age effect on harm is not independent of emotional distress. When depression and anxiety are accounted for, the direct impact of age largely disappears, suggesting that mental-health difficulties are a core pathway through which younger age translates into gambling harm. This positions emerging adults who gamble as a high-priority clinical group, in whom gambling, depression, and anxiety should be assessed and treated together rather than in silos. The authors argue that prevention and intervention programs must explicitly address this comorbidity cluster, integrating mental-health screening and support into gambling services and tailoring policies to the heightened vulnerability of young adults in contemporary, highly accessible gambling markets.