John M. Wallace, Jr.

University of Pittsburgh | Pitt · School of Social Work

The purpose of the present study was to determine the extent to which religiosity “protects” young people of color from substance use, as past research suggests that it protects white youth. Consistent with the findings of previous research, based on predominantly white samples, we found statistically and substantively significant inverse relations...

Introduction: Use of waterpipe tobacco smoking (WTS) is now prevalent among U.S. adolescents. However, the more clinically relevant questions are whether users exhibit sustained patterns of use and whether use is increasing over time relative to other tobacco products. We aimed to examine factors associated with sustained WTS among U.S. adolescent...

The purpose of this chapter is to review briefly the state of education in America, with a particular focus on its racial/ethnic and social class “achievement gaps.†The chapter begins with a brief overview of the changing demographics of America. I then report recent data on the magnitude and trends in the various achievement gaps. Next, I exam...

The burden of children’s asthma is greater among communities of color and the urban poor. Although researchers do not fully understand the causes of race disparities in asthma, they have learned that much of the risk is attributable to preventable social and environmental features of the environments where children live, learn, and play. Armed with...

Background and Purpose Approximately 50 million Americans are food insecure (USDA Economic Research Service, 2012). Without a local supermarket, 23.5 million Americans live in communities considered a food desert or a product of “food redlining” (Treuhaft & Karpyn, 2010; USDA Economic Research Service, 2009). Food inaccessibility creates barriers...

Vacant and abandoned properties adversely affect the physical, mental, social, and economic health and well-being of individuals, families, and communities. This article describes a community–university partnership that combined a multimethod data collection strategy with a novel community-based participatory intervention research model (i.e., data...

Social capital refers to various levels of social relationships formed through social networks. Measurement differences have lead to imprecise measurement. A meta-analysis of eligible studies assessing the bivariate association between social capital and self-reported health and all-cause mortality was performed. Thirty-nine studies met inclusion c...

Background & Purpose: Child maltreatment is an enduring problem in the United States with well-documented negative effects on children. Though the literature suggests a consistent relationship between neighborhood impoverishment and rates of child abuse and neglect, methodological concerns may limit the validity of these findings. The present study...

Background & Purpose: Recent research has suggested that, in addition to the aesthetic and monetary concerns related to vacant and abandoned buildings, the presence of this type of neighborhood disorder affects people mentally and physically. These effects are especially salient for children whose developing brains and immune systems are at higher...

Background and Purpose: The Homewood Children's Village (HCV) is a collaborative comprehensive community initiative focused on an economically disadvantaged inner-city neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA. The HCV is modeled after Geoffrey Canada's internationally acclaimed Harlem Children's Zone, with a mission to simultaneously improve the lives of Hom...

Research reveals that vacant and abandoned properties threaten children's physical and mental health. This study used a partnership approach to assess the condition and occupancy of properties in a disadvantaged Pittsburgh, PA neighborhood and mobilized residents to use data to address the most problematic properties. As part of the Homewood Childr...

Secondary school students' rates of substance use vary significantly by race/ethnicity and by their parents' level of education (a proxy for socioeconomic status). The relationship between students' substance use and race/ethnicity is, however, potentially confounded because parental education also differs substantially by race/ethnicity. This repo...

Purpose: As a result of the relatively widespread acceptance of the gateway hypothesis, most efforts to prevent adolescent substance use focus on preventing young people from going through the gateways (e.g., using tobacco) so that they will not progress to the use of illicit drugs. Implicit in this prevention strategy is the assumption that all yo...

Youth violence remains one of America's most pressing public health problems. In fact, the homicide rate for youth in the United States is the highest in the world. Other key indicators of the magnitude of America's violence problem include the number of youth treated each year in hospital emergency departments (750,000 in 2004), the number young p...

Social capital generally refers to social relationships formed through reciprocal exchanges among members of social networks such as religious, political, and other kinds of organizations. There are significant theoretical and measurement differences within the literature and little evidence about the relationship between social capital and health...

This study uses large nationally representative samples of White, Black, Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Other Latina, Asian American, and American Indian 8th-grade girls to examine racial/ethnic differences and similarities in patterns, trends, and socioeconomic correlates of cigarette use. The data are drawn from the University of Michigan's Moni...

Historically, girls have been less delinquent than boys. However, increased justice system involvement among girls and current portrayals of girls in the popular media and press suggest that girls' delinquency, particularly their violence and drug use, is becoming more similar to that of boys. Are girls really becoming more delinquent? To date, thi...

This study utilizes data from the older African American sub-sample of the National Survey of American Life (n=837) to examine the sociodemographic and denominational correlates of organizational religious involvement among older African Americans. Six measures of organizational religious participation are utilized, including two measures of time a...

The incarceration of young people is a growing national problem. Key correlates of incarceration among American youth include mental health problems, substance use, and delinquency. The present study uses a statewide sample of incarcerated youth to examine racial differences in African American and Caucasian juvenile offenders' outcomes related to...

The purpose of this investigation was to test whether the gateway hypothesis of drug initiation sequencing applies equally well to high-risk African-American and Caucasian youth. The study sample (N = 618, mean age = 15.5, SD = 1.2) represented the population of residents in the Missouri Division of Youth Services (DYS) who had initiated marijuana...

The present study uses large nationally representative samples of White, Black, Hispanic, Asian American, and American Indian students to examine current patterns and recent trends (1991 to 2005) in racial, ethnic, and gender differences in school discipline. We found that Black, Hispanic, and American Indian youth are slightly more likely than Whi...

For more than three decades scholars have debated about if, when, and under what circumstances religiosity deters delinquency. The present study uses multilevel modeling data analytic techniques (i.e., hierarchical linear model [HLM]) and large nationally representative samples of American public high schools (N = 227) and high school seniors (N =...

Previous research suggests that religiosity "protects" young people from substances abuse. Because most of this research has been based on samples of White youth, however, the extent to which its findings apply to Black and Hispanic youth is largely unknown. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to address two relatively simple but essenti...

The accurate identification of risk factors is central to the development of effective efforts to prevent young people from using alcohol, tobacco and other substances. To date, a key limitation of the prevention literature has been the paucity of research that examines the extent to which substance use risk factors identified in studies of white a...

We compared trends in and correlates of marijuana use, cocaine use, and heavy alcohol use for adolescents of Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and other Latin American heritage in the United States. We used/examined data from nationally representative samples of eighth-grade Hispanic students who participated in the Monitoring the Future study...

As a result of stereotypes and limited research, many people perceive substance use, abuse, and dependence as problems resulting from the use of so called "street drugs " like crack and heroin, used primarily by poor black and Hispanic populations. In reality, America's substance use problem encompasses not only these illegal drugs, but also the "r...

Past research has not fully explained why black youth are less likely than white youth to use alcohol and other substances. One plausible yet underexamined explanation is the "religion hypothesis," which posits that black youth are more likely than white youth to abstain because they are more religious than white youth. The present study tested thi...

This study used large nationally representative samples of 8th-, 10th-, and 12th-grade students to examine current patterns, recent trends, and sociodemographic correlates of religiosity among American adolescents. The results indicate that approximately 60% of American young people feel that religion is an important part of their life, 50% regular...

This paper examines ethnic differences in licit and illicit drug use among American 8th, 10th and 12th grade students, with a particular focus on girls. The study uses cross-sectional data from large, ethnically diverse, nationally representative samples of 8th, 10th and 12th grade girls. Data were collected through questionnaires administered in s...

https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/137867/1/occ58.pdf

This study examines differences in adolescents' use of tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs by racial and ethnic groups. The authors analyzed questionnaire data from large, nationally representative samples of U.S. high school seniors to examine differences in drug use prevalence and trends among racial and ethnic groups between 1976 and 2000. On av...

The accurate identification of risk factors is central to the development of effective efforts to prevent young people from using alcohol, tobacco and other substances. To date, a key limitation of the prevention literature has been the paucity of research that examines the extent to which substance use risk factors identified in studies of white a...

We investigated how often young adults worry about race relationsand whether they perceive that white/black relations have beendeteriorating. We also explored the relationships betweenrace-related worry and pessimism, and subjective well-being. This study addressed the distribution of race-related worry andpessimism, and their relationship to subje...

In this paper we examine whether the physical availability of alcohol is greater in predominantly African American communities compared to predominantly white communities as indicated by the presence of off premises liquor stores. We investigate the extent to which the income status of the residents of a community mediates the relationship between...

Although there is a growing literature on racial/ethnic differences in alcohol, tobacco and other drug use among adolescents, relatively little is known about the social epidemiology of drug use within the black youth population. The purpose of this article is to address this knowledge gap. Data from the Monitoring the Future Project are used to ex...

The purposes of this article are to inform pediatricians and other health professionals of key contextual risk factors that elevate black and Hispanic Americans' likelihood to use substances and to discuss selected protective mechanisms that may shield members of these populations against substance use. The article selectively reviews the literatur...

Although past research has long documented religion's salutary impact on adult health-related behaviors and outcomes, relatively little research has examined the relationship between religion and adolescent health. This study uses large, nationally representative samples of high school seniors to examine the relationship between religion and behavi...

Despite a growing literature on race differences in drug use, few studies have offered theoretical explanations for their existence. In light of this limitation, this paper describes a conceptual framework for understanding race differences in adolescent and young adult drug use. The central argument of the paper is that in order for researchers to...

This article reports findings from a national survey that questioned school social workers on school violence. The article focuses on personal reports of victimization, precautions taken to avoid victimization, training needs to deal with school violence, programs in schools, and social workers' involvement with violence intervention. Findings sugg...

Awareness of violence as a problem is important in developing school-based interventions to reduce violence. How would social workers who reported a potentially lethal event in their schools within the past year rate the seriousness of the problem in their schools? What variables would be associated with the perception of a serious violence problem...

The number of adolescent females between the ages of 13 and 19 who are contracting sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) is rising at an alarming rate. Although the issue of STDs has been overshadowed by continued public debate over adolescent pregnancy and childbearing, it demands attention. Particularly concerning is the fact that STDs increase th...

This study uses large, nationally representative samples of high school seniors to investigate the epidemiology, reliability, and validity of racial/ethnic differences in drug use. On average, use is highest among American Indians and Whites, at an intermediate level among Hispanics, and lowest among Blacks and Asians. Racial/ethnic differences in...

This paper reports racial/ethnic differences in the use of licit and illicit drugs by high school seniors in the United States. The study uses questionnaire data from annual, nationally representative surveys of seniors from 1976 through 1989. Combined sample sizes were 57,620 for 1976-79; 75,772 for 1980-84; and 73,527 for 1985-89. Native American...

https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/137893/1/occ30.pdf

Past research has shown large racial/ethnic differences in adolescent drug use, with use highest among Native American youth, somewhat lower among white and Hispanic youth, and lowest among black and Asian youth. The present study uses large nationally representative samples of high school seniors to explore whether the often large racial/ethnic di...