Addictive behaviours, including the use of addictive substances poses substantial, yet preventable, individual and public health and social burdens. Youth in particular remain vulnerable to such adverse health and social consequences. While both international and Nordic studies consistently document increases in substance use, gambling/gaming and social media use across adolescent years and identify the associated risk factors, the putative links between early engagement in addictive behaviours and social belonging remain poorly understood.

Social belonging is a fundamental human need across cultures. Support from and connection to family, friends, school, and the community can have a profound impact on adolescent development, and thus ultimately, on population health and social disparities. However, our knowledge of the associations, including potentially mutual influences, between adolescents’ health behaviours such as substance use and their social belonging status is limited.

The proposed pre-conference aims to provide novel insights into these questions by (1) discussing central concepts such as social belonging/exclusion and loneliness, and knowledge about their relation to various outcomes such as addictive behaviours and health, (2) presenting findings from Nordic studies on social belonging and addictive behaviours among youth, and (3) facilitating collaboration among Nordic researchers on this topic. A range of relevant research questions will be explored within the Nordic shared socio-cultural context, focusing primarily on quantitative and qualitative assessment of social belonging among youth and its putative associations with addictive behaviours and other important correlates (e.g., mental health) during the last decade.