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Relationships of Adolescents’ Perceptions of Parental and Peer Behaviors with Cigarette and Alcohol Use in Different Neighborhood Contexts
Abstract
This study examined the relationships of adolescents' perceptions of parental and peer behaviors with cigarette and alcohol use in different neighborhood contexts. The sample included 924 adolescents (49% boys, 51% girls) 12-14 years of age whose addresses were matched with 1990 census block groups. Six neighborhood types were identified through a cluster analysis. The findings suggest that parental smoking was associated with increased adolescent smoking in suburban white middle socioeconomic status (SES) neighborhoods. Peer smoking was associated with increased adolescent smoking in rural neighborhoods. Parental monitoring was associated with decreased adolescent drinking in urban white high-SES neighborhoods and parental drinking was associated with increased adolescent drinking in urban white middle-SES neighborhoods, respectively. Peer drinking was associated with increased adolescent drinking in urban neighborhoods. This study demonstrates the importance of examining parental and peer influences on adolescent smoking and drinking in different neighborhood contexts.
... As children grow into adolescents, their peers typically influence their decision making and health behaviours, including smoking, more strongly (Wiium & Wold, 2009). For example, past studies have found an association between teen smoking and teens who have friends who smoke in both Indigenous populations (Whitlock et al., 2012) and non-Indigenous populations (Alexander, Piazza, Mekos, & Valente, 2001;Chuang, Ennet, Bauman, & Foshee, 2009;Wen et al., 2009). The relationship between teens, their peers, and smoking behaviour is complex and has been explained through two mechanisms: socialization-which views an individual's smoking behaviour as something that is influenced by the norms and behaviours of their peer group-and selection-which views this behaviour as the tendency of individuals to seek out peers with similar norms and behaviours (Simons-Morton & Farhat, 2010). ...
... The only consistent risk factor for smoking among off-reserve First Nations, Métis, and Inuit students was having many close friends who engaged in risk behaviours (including but not restricted to smoking). This finding is in line with past research regarding both Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth, which has shown an association between teen smoking and having friends who smoke (Alexander et al., 2001;Chuang et al., 2009;Wen et al., 2009;Whitlock et al., 2012). Among off-reserve First Nations students, those who had many close friends with high educational aspirations (i.e., who thought it was important to work hard at school and to complete high school, and who planned to further their education or training) showed decreased odds of smoking. ...
... In addition, the relatively small overall sample size of Indigenous high school students precluded the analysis of gender-based correlates of smoking, or of neighbourhood factors associated with smoking. Some have argued that neighbourhoods of different population densities (i.e., urban, suburban, or rural) have structural and cultural differences, which may affect the influence of family, peers, and potentially schools on adolescent smoking behaviours (Chuang et al., 2009). ...
Using data from the 2012 Aboriginal Peoples Survey (APS), this study investigated associations between smoking and a number of school, peer, and family characteristics among off-reserve First Nations (n = 2,308), Métis (n = 2,058), and Inuit (n = 655) high school students aged 12 to 21 years. Logistic regressions revealed important group differences in Indigenous youths' correlates of smoking. Characteristics that were negatively associated with smoking included attending a school with a positive environment or having peers with high educational aspirations among First Nations students; participating in school-based club extra-curricular activities or living in a smoke-free home among Métis; and living in higher-income families among Inuit. A consistent risk factor for smoking among all Indigenous students was having close friends who engaged in risk behaviours.
... Peer Group is a group of people of the same age or social status (Oxford dictionary 6 th edition, p-973). Indicators of peer group include friends, classmates, colleagues, business partners etc. [16]. ...
... Anwar [21] says that disorganization of the family, influence of peer group, influence of slum, poverty etc. were the causes of drug addiction. Ying-chich chuang et al [16] found in his study that influence of peer drinking was the cause of adolescent drinking. Mariam, Iobidze [22] saw that in Asian Countries, Juvenile crime and delinquency were largely urban phenomena. ...
... Chain found in his study that the causes of drug addiction were family conflict, indifference of parents to the children, high ambition and frustration [23]. Yingchih chuang et al [16] found that in urban white middle-SES neighborhoods (types 2) perceived parental drinking was positively associated with adolescent drinking. ...
Drug addiction is becoming a social problem in Bangladesh. It creates many social offences. Consequently, the youth-the future of the nation-are running into the depth of darkness. This study tries to discover the causes of drug addiction in the urban life of Bangladesh. To conduct this study, analytical research design, social survey method & stratified random sampling have been followed. To measure the causes of drug addiction, the Likert Scaling five rating scale has been applied. Further, for hypotheses testing, an ᵡ 2-test has been used to test the degree to which two or more groups vary or differ in an experiment. The present findings suggest that the majority (67.67 %) of drug addicts think that drug addiction is high/very high, simultaneously 9.10% medium and 23.23% low/very low due to the influence of frustration, addicted parents and peer group in society. Again, the result of hypotheses testing suggests that a man can become addicted to drugs by the influence of frustration and peer group not influenced by the parental drug addiction. Therefore, these findings may help the policy makers and planners of the government and non-government organizations to take appropriate initiatives to prevent drug addiction in society.
... Peer Group is a group of people of the same age or social status (Oxford dictionary 6 th edition, p-973). Indicators of peer group include friends, classmates, colleagues, business partners etc. [16]. ...
... Anwar [21] says that disorganization of the family, influence of peer group, influence of slum, poverty etc. were the causes of drug addiction. Ying-chich chuang et al [16] found in his study that influence of peer drinking was the cause of adolescent drinking. Mariam, Iobidze [22] saw that in Asian Countries, Juvenile crime and delinquency were largely urban phenomena. ...
... Chain found in his study that the causes of drug addiction were family conflict, indifference of parents to the children, high ambition and frustration [23]. Yingchih chuang et al [16] found that in urban white middle-SES neighborhoods (types 2) perceived parental drinking was positively associated with adolescent drinking. ...
Drug addiction is becoming a social problem in Bangladesh. It creates many social offences. Consequently, the youth-the future of the nation-are running into the depth of darkness. This study tries to discover the causes of drug addiction in the urban life of Bangladesh. To conduct this study, analytical research design, social survey method & stratified random sampling have been followed. To measure the causes of drug addiction, the Likert Scaling five rating scale has been applied. Further, for hypotheses testing, an ᵡ 2-test has been used to test the degree to which two or more groups vary or differ in an experiment. The present findings suggest that the majority (67.67 %) of drug addicts think that drug addiction is high/very high, simultaneously 9.10% medium and 23.23% low/very low due to the influence of frustration, addicted parents and peer group in society. Again, the result of hypotheses testing suggests that a man can become addicted to drugs by the influence of frustration and peer group not influenced by the parental drug addiction. Therefore, these findings may help the policy makers and planners of the government and non-government organizations to take appropriate initiatives to prevent drug addiction in society.
... They reported that the number of tobacco retailers located around a school was associated only with smoking susceptibility. 30 Other societal factors associated with established (not experimental) smoking include school location [31][32][33] and neighbourhood socioeconomic status (SES). 31,32,34,35 Nevertheless, there is a dearth of literature on the influence of school location (urban vs. rural), tobacco retailer density and the SES of the community around a school on students' experimental smoking when adjusting for other student-level factors. ...
... 30 Other societal factors associated with established (not experimental) smoking include school location [31][32][33] and neighbourhood socioeconomic status (SES). 31,32,34,35 Nevertheless, there is a dearth of literature on the influence of school location (urban vs. rural), tobacco retailer density and the SES of the community around a school on students' experimental smoking when adjusting for other student-level factors. Because these school-level factors have previously been found to be associated with established smoking, [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38] we were interested in finding out whether these factors were also associated with experimental smoking among adolescents. ...
... 31,32,34,35 Nevertheless, there is a dearth of literature on the influence of school location (urban vs. rural), tobacco retailer density and the SES of the community around a school on students' experimental smoking when adjusting for other student-level factors. Because these school-level factors have previously been found to be associated with established smoking, [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38] we were interested in finding out whether these factors were also associated with experimental smoking among adolescents. As such, the purpose of this study was to examine which school neighbourhood and student-level characteristics differentiate experimental smokers from never smokers. ...
Introduction:
Understanding the characteristics of experimental smoking among youth is critical for designing prevention programs. This study examined which student- and school-level factors differentiated experimental smokers from never smokers in a nationally representative sample of Canadian students in grades 9 to 12.
Methods:
School-level data from the 2006 Canadian Census and one built environment characteristic (tobacco retailer density) were linked with data from secondary school students from the 2008-2009 Canadian Youth Smoking Survey and examined using multilevel logistic regression analyses.
Results:
Experimental smoking rates varied across schools (p < .001). The location (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 0.66, 95% CI: 0.49-0.89) of the school (urban vs. rural) was associated with the odds of a student being an experimental smoker versus a never smoker when adjusting for student characteristics. Students were more likely to be experimental smokers if they were in a lower grade, reported low school connectedness, used alcohol or marijuana, believed that smoking can help people relax, received pocket money each week and had a family member or close friend who smoked cigarettes.
Conclusion:
School-based tobacco prevention programs need to be grade-sensitive and comprehensive in scope; include strategies that can increase students' attachment to their school; and address multi-substance use, tobacco-related beliefs and the use of pocket money. These programs should also reach out to students who have smoking friends and family members. Schools located in rural settings may require additional resources.
... Adolescent drinking is on the rise (1). In a study by Hibell et al. (2), 15-16-year-old students in 35 European countries reported that approximately 90% (range: 66-95%) of youth have tried alcoholic beverages at least once. Recent data from the World Health Organization has shown that 41.2% of 15-19-year-olds drink alcohol in China (3). ...
... When controlling for other background characteristics, peer influence was the most significant factor affecting adolescent drinking (32,34). Further, Chuang et al. found that the neighborhood context constitutes the setting in which peer influences on adolescent behaviors occur (35). Barrett and Turner and Gommans et al. also found that the popularity composition of one's peer group and the relative difference in popularity between an adolescent and their peers is also associated with adolescent drinking (26,36). ...
Background
Governments around the world have taken measures to limit adolescent drinking, however, rates are still alarmingly high. However, most of these measures ignore the peer effect of drinking among adolescents. Previous studies have not sufficiently considered the reciprocal relationship between adolescent alcohol consumption and peer alcohol consumption, which may lead to an overestimation of the peer effect and mask underlying issues. Good instrumental variables are powerful but rare tools to address these issues.
Objective
This paper aims to correctly estimate the peer effect of drinking on adolescent drinking behavior in China.
Methods
Owing to the detailed information of household background in the dataset of our survey, we were able to use the drinking behaviors of peers’ fathers and their beliefs about the health risks of alcohol as instrumental variables, which are more powerful than school-average instrumental variables. We collected data from the 2017 Health and Nutrition Panel survey, which surveyed 10,772 primary school students from 59 urban migrant and 60 rural public schools.
Results
The instrumental variable method estimation revealed that peer drinking significantly influences adolescent drinking behavior, with adolescents who have peers who drink alcohol being 10.5% points (2 stage least square, i.e., 2SLS, full sample estimation) more likely to engage in drinking compared to those without such peers. Furthermore, the effect differs significantly between migrant and rural adolescents.
Conclusion
The study found that parental care plays a significant role in the degree of peer effect, with the absence of parental care being a key factor in the presence of the peer effect.
... Whilst there is a signi cant variation in substance use levels globally, alcohol and drug use has increased over recent decades in many low-income countries [1,2,6]. For instance, recent cross-sectional survey among 20,227 adolescents and youth (aged [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] in South Africa found that the prevalence of past month reported problematic alcohol use was 23% [7]. These ndings emphasize the need for investigating the effectiveness of intervention programs that aim at reducing substance use (including problematic alcohol, tobacco and drug use) among vulnerable groups. ...
... For example, if youth are aware of, or witness, their parent's use, a modeling effect might occur. Furthermore, parental substance use may increase the availability of that substance to their adolescent [22,23]. ...
Background: Substance use is a major public health concern worldwide. Alcohol and drug use have risen over recent decades in many low and middle-income countries, with South Africa among the highest globally.
Despite effectiveness of family-based interventions on reducing substance use among adolescents, less is known about the effectiveness of family-based programs on substance use among parents and caregivers, in particular, among families in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC).
This study investigated mediators of change in a parenting programme (Parenting for Lifelong Health -PLH) on reduction of substance use among parents and their children through three potential mediators: parental depression, parenting stress and family poverty. In addition, the study examined the correlation between parental substance use and adolescent substance use.
Methods: The current study draws on a pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial design; the total sample comprised 552 parents\caregiver and adolescent dyads (parents\caregivers M = 49.37; SD = 14.69 and adolescents M = 13.84; SD = 2.38) who were recruited from 40 communities in South Africa’s Eastern Cape. Participants completed a structured confidential self-report questionnaire, at baseline and follow-up test (5–9 months following the intervention). Structural equation modeling (SEM) was conducted to investigate direct and indirect effects.
Results: Mediation analysis indicated that PLH intervention impact on parental substance use reduction among parents ran through one indirect pathway: Improvement in parental mental health (reduction in parental depression levels). There were no pathways from PLH intervention to parental substance use through parenting stress or family poverty. Furthermore, findings showed a significant positive correlation between parental substance use and adolescents' substance use.
Conclusions: The findings of the study highlight the fact that PLH parenting intervention has a significant effect on secondary outcomes, including substance use and depression among parents\caregivers in LMIC. These findings emphasize the need for creating supportive environments and systems for parents who suffer from emotional strain and mental health problems, in particular among families in adversity. Supporting parental mental health as part of a parenting programme serves as a significant pathway for reducing substance use among parents and their children.
Trial registration: Pan-African Clinical Trials Registry PACTR201507001119966. Registered on 27 April 2015. It can be found by searching for the key word ‘Sinovuyo’ on their website or via the following link:http://www.pactr.org/ATMWeb/appmanager/atm/atmregistry_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=
BasicSearchUpdateController_1&BasicSearchUpdateController_1_actionOverride=
%2Fpageflows%2Ftrial%2FbasicSearchUpdate%2FviewTrail&BasicSearchUpdateController
_1id=1119
... Selon eux, il n'y avait d'association qu'entre le nombre de détaillants de produits du tabac situés près d'une école et la susceptibilité au tabagisme 30 . Les autres facteurs sociétaux associés au tabagisme établi (mais non au tabagisme expérimental) sont surtout l'emplacement de l'école 31-33 et le statut socioéconomique (SSE) du quartier 31,32,34,35 . ...
... Il y a toutefois un très petit nombre d'articles portant sur l'effet qu'ont l'emplacement de l'école (milieu urbain ou rural), la densité des détaillants de produits du tabac et le SSE du quartier de l'école sur le tabagisme expérimental des élèves après ajustement en fonction d'autres facteurs relatifs aux élèves. Étant donné que ces facteurs relatifs à l'école ont déjà été associés au tabagisme établi [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38] , nous avons voulu déterminer si ces facteurs étaient également associés au tabagisme expérimental chez les adolescents. Cette étude vise ainsi à déterminer quelles caractéristiques relatives au quartier et aux élèves sont susceptibles de distinguer les fumeurs à titre expérimental des élèves n'ayant jamais fumé. ...
Introduction
Il est essentiel de comprendre les caractéristiques du tabagisme expérimental chez les jeunes pour élaborer des programmes de prévention. Dans cette étude, nous avons analysé, à partir d'un échantillon représentatif des élèves canadiens de la 9e à la 12e année, les facteurs relatifs aux élèves et les facteurs relatifs aux écoles qui différenciaient les fumeurs à titre expérimental des élèves n'ayant jamais fumé.
Méthodologie
Des données relatives aux écoles recueillies dans le cadre du Recensement de 2006 ainsi qu'une caractéristique relative au milieu bâti (densité des détaillants de produits du tabac) ont été reliées à des données relatives aux élèves du secondaire tirées de l'Enquête sur le tabagisme chez les jeunes de 2008-2009 et ont été soumises à une série d'analyses par régression logistique multiniveaux.
Résultats
Le taux de tabagisme expérimental variait d'une école à l'autre (p $lt; 0,001). Après ajustement en fonction des caractéristiques des élèves, on a observé une association entre l'emplacement (rapport de cotes ajusté = 0,66, intervalle de confiance à 95 % : 0,49 à 0,89) de l'école (milieu urbain ou rural) et le risque qu'un élève soit fumeur à titre expérimental plutôt qu'élève n'ayant jamais fumé. Les élèves étaient plus susceptibles d'être fumeurs à titre expérimental s'ils étaient d'un niveau scolaire inférieur, s'ils avaient un faible sentiment d'appartenance à leur école, s'ils consommaient de l'alcool ou de la marijuana, s'ils croyaient que le tabagisme avait un effet apaisant, s'ils recevaient de l'argent de poche chaque semaine et si un membre de leur famille ou un de leurs amis intimes fumait des cigarettes.
Conclusion
Les programmes de prévention du tabagisme en milieu scolaire doivent à la fois être adaptés au niveau scolaire et exhaustifs, comprendre des stratégies visant à accroître le sentiment d'appartenance des élèves à leur école et tenir compte du phénomène de polyconsommation, des croyances relatives au tabagisme et de l'utilisation qui est faite de l'argent de poche. Ces programmes devraient également cibler les élèves dont un ami ou un membre de la famille fume. Par ailleurs, les écoles situées en milieu rural pourraient avoir besoin de ressources supplémentaires.
... Evidence indicates authoritative parenting styles (Calafat, Garcia, Juan, Becona, & Fernandez-Hermida, 2014;Adalbjarnardottir & Hafsteinsson, 2001;Baumrind, 1991), positive parent-child attachments (Velleman, 2009;van der Vorst, Engels, Meeus, Dekovic, & Vermulst, 2006) and parental monitoring can protect young people from substance use (Higgins, McCann, McLaughlin, McCartan, & Perra, 2013;Fallu et al., 2010;Frisher, Crome, Macleod, Bloor, & Hickman, 2007). One central risk factor within families is the role that social learning processes play in modeling the behaviors and attitudes regarding substance use (Griffin & Botvin, 2010) in addition to providing opportunities to gain access to substances (Chuang, Ennett, Bauman, & Foshee, 2009). Evidence suggests exposure to parental substance misuse can place adolescents at risk of involvement with drugs and alcohol (Chuang et al., 2009;Hooper, Doehler, Jankowski, & Tomek, 2012;Mares, van der Vorst, Engels, & Lichtwarck-Aschoff, 2011;Muller & Kuntsche, 2011). ...
... One central risk factor within families is the role that social learning processes play in modeling the behaviors and attitudes regarding substance use (Griffin & Botvin, 2010) in addition to providing opportunities to gain access to substances (Chuang, Ennett, Bauman, & Foshee, 2009). Evidence suggests exposure to parental substance misuse can place adolescents at risk of involvement with drugs and alcohol (Chuang et al., 2009;Hooper, Doehler, Jankowski, & Tomek, 2012;Mares, van der Vorst, Engels, & Lichtwarck-Aschoff, 2011;Muller & Kuntsche, 2011). ...
Background:
Adolescent substance use can place youth at risk of a range of poor outcomes. Few studies have attempted to explore in-depth young people's perceptions of how familial processes and dynamics influence adolescent substance use.
Objectives:
This article aimed to explore risk and protective factors for youth substance use within the context of the family with a view to informing family based interventions.
Methods:
Nine focus groups supplemented with participatory techniques were facilitated with a purposive sample of sixty-two young people (age 13-17 years) from post-primary schools across Northern Ireland. The data were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using thematic analysis.
Results:
Three themes emerged from the data: (1) parent-child attachments, (2) parenting style, and (3) parental and sibling substance misuse. Parent-child attachment was identified as an important factor in protecting adolescents from substance use in addition to effective parenting particularly an authoritative style supplemented with parental monitoring and strong parent-child communication to encourage child disclosure. Family substance use was considered to impact on children's substance use if exposed at an early age and the harms associated with parental substance misuse were discussed in detail. Both parent and child gender differences were cross-cutting themes.
Conclusion:
Parenting programmes (tailored to mothers and fathers) may benefit young people via components on authoritative styles, parental monitoring, communication, nurturing attachments and parent-child conflict. Youth living with more complex issues, e.g., parental substance misuse, may benefit from programmes delivered beyond the family environment, e.g., school based settings.
... Some of the contradictory findings emerging in past research may have occurred because this research typically examines neighborhood structure via a ''variable-centered'' approach, using single items (e.g., poverty rate, racial composition) or indices of neighborhood characteristics (e.g., concentrated disadvantage). This treats various structural characteristics of neighborhoods as if they are independent, ignoring their intersections (Choo and Ferree 2010), obscuring heterogeneity (Luke 2005), and disregarding the ways in which different neighborhoods may reflect different combinations of these dimensions (Aneshensel and Sucoff 1996;Chuang et al. 2009;Upchurch et al. 1999). ...
... The current study addresses this, and extends past research (e.g., Chuang et al. 2009;Upchurch et al. 1999) recognizing the distinct ways in which the characteristics often cited as ''neighborhood effects''-specifically, poverty, racial/ethnic composition, and urbanicity-combine in ways that may create very different types of neighborhood contexts, each with potentially different effects on adolescent behavior. This approach draws from the ideas advanced by person-centered strategies (Cairns et al. 1998) by using latent class analysis to identify patterns among neighborhood compositional variables (instead of relying on singular measures or linear relationships between two or more variables). ...
The current understanding of the neighborhood contexts wherein adolescent substance use emerges remains limited by conflicting findings regarding geographic variation in, and neighborhood effects on, both the prevalence of and risk factors for such use. Using four waves of longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health [n = 18,697 (51 % female, 54 % White, 24 % Black, 16 % Hispanic, 7 % Asian, 2 % American Indian/Other)], latent class analysis, and growth curve modeling, this study identified distinct neighborhood types-patterned by race/ethnicity, socioeconomic class, and geography-and explored how trajectories of adolescent and young adult marijuana use differed across neighborhood types. The results demonstrated complexity in neighborhood contexts, illustrating variation in trajectories of marijuana use across neighborhood types heretofore unobserved in neighborhoods research, and largely unexplained by key individual, family, and peer risk and protective factors. This approach highlights how social structural forces intersect and anchor trajectories of youth substance-using risk behavior.
... To date, two studies (Chuang, Ennett, Bauman, & Foshee, 2009;Nowlin & Colder, 2007) have examined the interaction between objective indices of neighborhood quality and parenting on the risk of adolescent smoking. Among a sample (n = 9,463) of U.S. adolescents aged less than 18 years of age (mean age: 15.5 years), there were no interactions between neighborhood poverty and parental control and warmth on either frequency or quantity of adolescent smoking during the past thirty days (Nowlin & Colder, 2007). ...
... However, there was a significant interaction between paternal involvement and quantity of smoking, suggesting that paternal involvement was negatively associated with the quantity of smoking in low-poverty neighborhoods but not in high-poverty neighborhoods. Among another sample (n = 959) of U.S. adolescents aged 12-14 years, parental closeness and monitoring were independent of the risk of adolescent ever smoking in different types of neighborhoods as defined by their geographic locations and racial and socioeconomic compositions (Chuang et al., 2009). However, findings from these two studies are of limited generalizability to adolescent regular smoking (weekly or daily), a strong predictor of adult smoking (Chassin, Presson, Sherman, & Edwards, 1990) and nicotine dependence, because parenting and neighborhood quality may influence adolescent regular smoking in different ways from smoking initiation (Flay et al., 1998) or current smoking. ...
To conduct the first study to examine potential interaction between parenting style and neighborhood quality on the risk of adolescent regular smoking.
We analyzed data from a nationally representative sample of U.S. adolescents (n = 1,213 pairs of adolescents and their parents) who participated in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics during 2002-2003. Regular smoking behavior and parental monitoring level were reported by adolescents. Parenting style (i.e., authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and uninvolved) was defined by cross-classifying self-reported parental warmth and control. Based on parents' perceived neighborhood quality regarding raising children, neighborhoods were identified as either higher quality or lower quality.
Adolescents in lower-quality neighborhoods were more likely to be regular smokers (13.7% vs. 8.5%; adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 1.93, 95% CI = 1.02-3.65) than those in higher-quality neighborhoods. In lower-quality neighborhoods, adolescents of authoritarian parents (16.9%; AOR = 10.97, 95% CI = 3.36-35.84) were more likely and those of uninvolved parents (20.3%; AOR = 3.47, 95% CI = 0.91-13.17) were marginally more likely to be regular smokers than those of authoritative parents (4.3%). However, among adolescents in higher-quality neighborhoods, parenting style was independent of the risk of regular smoking. There was marginally significant interaction between authoritarian parenting style and neighborhood quality. Parental monitoring was associated with reduced risk of adolescent smoking, regardless of neighborhood quality. There was no interaction between parental monitoring and neighborhood quality.
Authoritative parenting is associated with reduced risk of adolescent regular smoking in lower-quality neighborhoods but not in higher-quality neighborhoods. Authoritative parenting style and parental monitoring may buffer adverse influences of low-quality neighborhood.
... Other studies reveal that when parents and friends have opposing habits, adolescents face a tradeoff between parental vs peer behavioral norms, yielding a non-trivial overall effect on their behaviors. For example, in the cases of teenagers' initiation to alcohol use or criminal acts, the positive conduct of parents has been shown to buffer the negative influences of friends (Hoffmann & Dufur, 2008;Chuang et al., 2009;Trucco et al., 2011). ...
This paper investigates the association between teenagers’ concealment of gambling activities from parents and the gambling habits of parents and friends. We use survey data from 10,959 Italian high-school students aged 13–18 or older, focusing on those who reported having actively gambled (N = 5542). We find that teenagers with gambling parents are 17–18% less likely to conceal their gambling activities compared to those with non-gambling parents. Instead, having gambling friends does not statistically influence teenagers’ deception. We further show that deception decreases in the presence of a good parent-child relationship, and when the money used for gambling comes from parents. Together, these empirical patterns highlight the dominant role of parents over friends, and lend support for intergenerational transmission of gambling behaviors within the household through implicitly reducing the cost of gambling concealment for adolescents. We suggest family-based policy interventions, and call for replication and further evidence.
... Influence of peer drinking was the cause of adolescent drinking". Mariam, Iobidze saw that "in Asian Countries, Juvenile crime and delinquency were largely urban phenomena" [10]. ...
In Bangladesh, recently drug addiction is considered as a major problem, because our young generation is highly involved with the issue. Drug is now the curse of a society. This curse has polluted our society to its core. 200 million people around the world are into drug abuse most of who are teenagers. Bangladesh does not produce drugs, but the global environment has made it a dangerous place for drug abuse. Besides, urbanization, population growth, widespread use of the internet and lack of awareness has made drug abuse an epidemic. The drug scenario in Bangladesh has changed with time. Drug addiction is turning to the national problem from social problem. It creates many other problems. This study conducted to identify the core cause of drug addiction of young generation. To conduct this research, questionnaire survey and case study have conducted. Case study tried to bring out the core factor responsible for the drug addiction of young generation and questionnaire survey expressed the people’s perception toward drug addiction. These research findings suggest that influence of peer group; weak family bonding, affluence and shortage of money are the key responsible factor for the drug addiction of young generation in Bangladesh.
... It is well-known that adolescence is sensitive stages of growth, which adolescents will face great change in behaviors and psychology. In this special period, adolescents are very curious about new things and have many chances of imitating their peers to engage in HRBs (Chuang et al., 2009). Furthermore, a lot of researches show that different HRBs are associated with psychological symptoms in adolescents. ...
Multiple health risk behaviors (HRBs) tend to co-occur which increase risks of mental disorder. In this study, we identified the association between latent class of HRBs and psychological symptoms in Chinese adolescents. We assessed 22 628 Chinese adolescents from November 2015 to January 2016. The average age of the students were (15.36 ± 1.79), among which there were 10 990 male students and 11 638 female students. A latent class analysis was applied to identity HRBs patterns. The multivariable logistic regression models were utilized to examine the association between HRBs patterns and psychological symptoms. Four latent classes were identified, characterized as low-risk class, moderate-risk class 1 (smoking/ alcohol use (AU)/screen time (ST)), moderate-risk class 2 (ULW/ problematic mobile phone use (PMPU)), and high-risk class (ULW/smoking/AU/ST/ PMPU), which were 71.2%, 3.2%, 22.3%, and 3.3% of involved participants, respectively. Compared to the low-risk class, moderate-risk class 1, moderate-risk class 2, and high-risk class showed that adjusted OR (95%CI) value of 1.97 (1.68 - 2.32), 3.98 (3.72 - 4.26) and 6.38 (CI: 5.47 - 7.44) were significantly associated with psychological symptoms (P < 0.001 for each). Our findings indicated that identifying different latent class of HRBs would be helpful for the design of tailored interventions, and prevention of different patterns of HRBs should be considered in the implementation of effective intervention programs related to psychological symptoms.
... At the bivariate level, there were no significant differences between girls in metropolitan vs. non-metropolitan counties on critical study variables such as criminogenic needs (including substance use) or criminal history. This finding was surprising given other studies highlighting important differences between rural and urban youth related to substance use (Donath et al., 2011;Havens, Young, & Havens, 2011;Lambert et al., 2008), delinquency (Harden et al., 2009;Lambert et al., 2008), and other criminogenic needs (Byun, Meece, & Irvin, 2012;Chuang, Ennett, Bauman, & Foshee, 2009). It is possible that the small sample size (N=160) in this study masked some of the detectable differences at the bivariate level, which should be further examined in a larger sample. ...
Research is limited on geographic differences in substance use risk factors among juvenile justice-involved girls. This secondary data analysis from one state juvenile justice system, collected as part of the NIH/NIDA funded JJTRIALS cooperative agreement, assessed criminogenic needs at intake for 160 girls from metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties. Although girls from different geographic areas did not differ significantly on key variables of interest, including substance use risk and related criminality variables, findings suggest that substance use risk is related to criminal history, substance-related offenses, and relationship problems among justice-involved girls. Implications include gender-specific juvenile justice programming and research.
... Conventional institutions of social control, including family, schools, churches, and volunteer organizations, tend to be among the weaker community influences and unable to regulate the behavior of the youth residing in these neighborhoods. Limited social cohesion and control also impede parents from actively engaging in supporting and controlling adolescent risk behaviors (Akers, Muhammad, & Corbie-Smith, 2011;Browning, Soller, & Jackson, 2015;Chuang, Ennett, Bauman, & Foshee, 2009;Kerrigan, Witt, Glass, Chung, & Ellen, 2006;Sampson, Morenoff, & Earls, 1999;Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1997). ...
Low‐income youths in KwaZulu‐Natal, South Africa, face elevated risks to their well‐being from exposure to neighborhood conditions correlated with engaging in risky behaviors. These risks can be mitigated through adult caregivers who serve as protective shields, buffering adverse conditions. However, this protective role is dependent on the caregivers’ mental health and well‐being. This secondary analysis uses baseline data from 475 child‐caregiver dyads in an HIV‐prevention program to examine the mediating effects of caregiver mental health on the relationship between neighborhood conditions and child risk‐behaviors. Multivariate analyses identify the direct and indirect effects of neighborhood stressors and caregiver mental health on child risk‐behavior. Findings suggest that caregivers mitigate the impact of neighborhood conditions on their children, but caregivers’ mental health is directly affected by neighborhood conditions. Therefore, caregivers’ mental health and well‐being must be considered key elements in developing youth risk‐behavior interventions.
... For example, lower levels of parental monitoring are associated with alcohol use trajectories characterized by higher levels of alcohol use during early and middle adolescence (Becker et al., 2012). Higher levels of parental knowledge and monitoring have been associated with less favorable attitudes towards using drugs and higher self-efficacy in refusing drugs (Chuang, Ennett, Bauman, & Foshee, 2009;Lac, Alvaro, Crano, & Siegel, 2009;Nash, McQueen, & Bray, 2005). Parental monitoring may also insulate children from affiliating with deviant peers and/or being exposed to illicit drug use, which may contribute to reduced adolescent alcohol use Nash et al., 2005). ...
The study examined (a) whether alcohol use subgroups could be identified among African Americans assessed from adolescence through early adulthood, and (b) whether subgroup membership was associated with the interaction between internalizing symptoms and antisocial behavior polygenic risk scores (PRSs) and environmental characteristics (i.e., parental monitoring, community disadvantage). Participants ( N = 436) were initially recruited for an elementary school-based prevention trial in a Mid-Atlantic city. Youths reported on the frequency of their past year alcohol use from ages 14–26. DNA was obtained from participants at age 21. Internalizing symptoms and antisocial behavior PRSs were created based on a genome-wide association study (GWAS) conducted by Benke et al. (2014) and Tielbeek et al. (2017), respectively. Parental monitoring and community disadvantage were assessed at age 12. Four classes of past year alcohol use were identified: (a) early-onset, increasing; (b) late-onset, moderate use; (c) low steady; and (d) early-onset, decreasing. In high community disadvantaged settings, participants with a higher internalizing symptoms PRS were more likely to be in the early-onset, decreasing class than the low steady class. When exposed to elevated community disadvantage, participants with a higher antisocial behavior PRS were more likely to be in the early-onset, increasing class than the early-onset, decreasing and late-onset, moderate use classes.
... For instance, it is well known that during the young adulthood, a critical period for starting substance use, peer networks have shown to exert important effects on substance use onset [125,126]. Peer support has not been always related to a protective effect, whereas parents and other adults have consistently been found to be a beneficious factor which suggests that the positive effect of social support depends on the source of the support [127,128]. Within a familiar context, a pattern of warm relationships, good communicative abilities, cohesion and clear rules have shown to play a preventive role on drug use beginning [129,130]. ...
Background:
Cognitive reserve (CR) refers to the ability of an individual to cope with brain pathology remaining free of cognitive symptoms. This protective factor has been related to compensatory and more efficient brain mechanisms involved in resisting brain damage. For its part, Brain reserve (BR) refers to individual differences in the structural properties of the brain which could also make us more resilient to suffer from neurodegenerative and mental diseases.
Objective:
This review summarizes how this construct, mainly mediated by educational level, occupational attainment, physical and mental activity, as well as successful social relationships, has gained scientific attention in the last years with regard to diseases, such as neurodegenerative diseases, stroke or traumatic brain injury. Nevertheless, although CR has been studied in a large number of disorders, few researches have addressed the role of this concept in drug addiction.
Methods:
We provide a selective overview of recent literature about the role of CR and BR in preventing substance use onset. Likewise, we will also discuss how variables involved in CR (healthy leisure, social support or job-related activities, among others) could be trained and included as complementary activities of substance use disorder treatments.
Results:
Evidence about this topic suggests a preventive role of CR and BR on drug use onset and when drug addiction is established, these factors led to less severe addiction-related problems, as well as better treatment outcomes.
Conclusion:
CR and BR are variables not taken yet into account in drug addiction. However, they could give us a valuable information about people at risk, as well as patient's prognosis.
... Regarding the individual variables, our results confirm that alcohol consumption is associated with positive expectancies, as other authors have shown previously (Ariza Cardenal & Nebot Adell, 2000). In addition, the mediating variables in our study, as siblings' and peers' alcohol drunkenness, had influence on individual alcohol consumption (Chuang, Ennett, Bauman, & Foshee, 2009;Llorens et al., 2011). Kavanagh et al. (2011) concluded that substance accessibility is an important predictor of risky alcohol consumption in adults, and Teixid o-Compañ o et al. (2017) pointed out that perceived accessibility to alcohol was a determinant factor for binge drinking among adolescents in our context, too. ...
Risky alcohol consumption among adolescents has health and social consequences. Evidence identifying the school context that determines alcohol consumption among rural and urban adolescents is lacking. This study aimed to describe the contextual school and town factors determining risky alcohol consumption among rural and urban 10th-grade adolescents (15-17 years old) from Catalonia (northeastern Spain). The study had a cross-sectional design. Cluster sampling with the class as the sampling unit was used, and a total of 1268 10th-grade adolescents from Catalonia nested in 26 high schools participated in the study. A computerized and self-administrated questionnaire was used to collect individual variables. Contextual variables were collected from the Catalan police registers, geocoded sources, and governmental internet databases, and by aggregation of answers from the self-administrated questionnaire. The prevalence of risky alcohol consumption was calculated, and a multilevel Poisson regression analysis with robust variance was conducted with data from adolescents nested within high schools. The results show that risky alcohol consumption is higher among rural adolescents (59.3%) than among urban youth (51.1%) (p < 0.005). Positive expectancies, drunkenness of siblings and friends, and most of the variables indicating accessibility are associated with risky alcohol consumption at the individual level. At the contextual level, the sports center rate and the high school's percentage of risky student alcohol consumption are strongly associated with individual risky alcohol consumption. The town environment (rural or urban), the unemployment rate, and the number of pubs and nightclubs lost their significance after adjustment by the individual and mediating variables. In conclusion, individual factors, such as the influence of drinking patterns of siblings and friends, and more alcohol access opportunities, are associated with adolescents' risky alcohol consumption. The associated contextual factors are the sports center rate and the percentage of risky classmate alcohol consumers. Interventions targeting adolescents should focus at community and high school levels, trying to reduce adolescents' accessibility to alcohol.
... which permits copy and redistribute the material just in noncommercial usages, provided the original work is properly cited. parental drug use is considered to be one of the major risk factors for adolescent drug use (15,16). ...
... Forrester, Biglan, Severson, and Smolkowski (2007) examined the predictors of smoking among adolescents over a two-year period and found parental smoking and having close friends who smoked to be significant predictors of adolescent smoking. Relatedly, Chuang, Ennett, Bauman, and Foshee (2009) found peer drinking to have a significant influence on adolescent drinking. This effect was found for urban and suburban neighborhoods, regardless of the ethnic composition and socio-economic status. ...
The study examines the social context of a cannabis offer, an outcome rarely examined in research on substance use. Drawing from a survey conducted among 15-year-old students in a mid-sized Canadian city, we examine (a) the differences between three types of users (immediate, late, and nonusers) and (b) the factors associated with accepting a cannabis offer more quickly. The findings show that 40% of the sample received an offer, that 25% of those who accept an offer do so on the first occasion, and that among the others, it takes up to seven offers before accepting. The social context of the offer distinguishes between the types of users, and offers are accepted more quickly when adolescents are first offered by a close social contact, and when the offer occurs in familiar settings. The study also identifies a type of nonuser, those who are exposed to drugs but decide not to participate.
... This speculation may be supported by previous studies that found that smoking was associated with other indicators of academic problems, such as boredom or lack of connection to school. [31][32][33] Regarding experience of severe problems, the experience included various types of social issues (child abuse, neglect, poverty, bullying, and truancy) and was significantly associated with high-school dropout. This is unsurprising, as these events often reflect various difficult aspects of the student's socioeconomic condition. ...
Background:
Our objective in this study was to find determinants of high-school dropout in a deprived area of Japan using longitudinal data, including socio-demographic and junior high school-period information.
Methods:
We followed 695 students who graduated the junior high school located in a deprived area of Japan between 2002 and 2010 for 3 years after graduation (614 students: follow-up rate, 88.3%). Multivariable log-binomial regression models were used to calculate the prevalence ratios (PRs) for high-school dropout, using multiple imputation (MI) to account for non-response at follow-up.
Results:
The MI model estimated that 18.7% of students dropped out of high school in approximately 3 years. In the covariates-adjusted model, three factors were significantly associated with high-school dropout: ≥10 days of tardy arrival in junior high school (PR 6.44; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.69-24.6 for "10-29 days of tardy arrival" and PR 8.01; 95% CI, 2.05-31.3 for "≥30 days of tardy arrival" compared with "0 day of tardy arrival"), daily smoking (PR 2.01; 95% CI, 1.41-2.86) and severe problems, such as abuse and neglect (PR 1.66; 95% CI, 1.16-2.39). Among students with ≥30 days of tardy arrival in addition to daily smoking or experience of severe problems, ≥50% high-school dropout rates were observed.
Conclusions:
Three determinants of high-school dropout were found: smoking, tardy arrival, and experience of severe problems. These factors were correlated and should be treated as warning signs of complex behavioral and academic problems. Parents, educators, and policy makers should work together to implement effective strategies to prevent school dropout.
... The prevalence of support for banning these substances was higher among females and those living in rural areas. These differences may be explained by findings from previous studies showing the perceived risk associated with substances misuse is lower in males (Okaneku et al. 2015) and that those living in urban areas are more exposed to possible substances abuse (especially alcohol) due to, among other factors, increased substances abuse in older population in these settings (Chuang et al. 2009;Lifestyles Statistics Team 2014). ...
Objectives:
This study assessed the support for bans for tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs in adolescents and young adults across the European Union (EU).
Methods:
Data were analysed for the years 2008, 2011, and 2014 for 27 EU member states. 37,253 individuals aged 15-24 years were interviewed ascertaining their support for banning tobacco, alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, heroin, and ecstasy. Changes over time were assessed using multilevel logistic regression.
Results:
Support for banning heroin, ecstasy, and cocaine was constantly greater than 90%, although support fell over time. Support for cannabis ban declined (from 67.6% in 2008 to 53.7% in 2014) as well as support for alcohol ban (from 8.9% in 2008 to 6.9% in 2014) and tobacco ban (from 17.9% in 2008 to 16.5% in 2014).
Conclusions:
Support for banning substances among EU adolescents and young adults varied, with high support for heroin, cocaine, and ecstasy, but less support for banning cannabis, tobacco, and alcohol. There was reduction in support of banning all substances between 2008 and 2014, but this varied substantially between European countries.
... Specifically, social bond theory asserts that adolescents are affectionately tied to other important people in their lives and those people are most likely to be their parents, teachers, and peers (Chuang et al., 2009). While Hirschi asserted that each of the attachments was important, he argued that parents were the most influential. ...
The primary purpose of this study was to ascertain whether an expanded version of Hirschi’s social bond, which included several peer related measures, could serve as a partial explanation of general, property, and violent crime, among Chinese university students. Utilizing data randomly collected from two major Chinese institutions, in two geographically disparate regions of Mainland China, we included traditional measures of parental and school attachment, school commitment, and belief. However, in an attempt to begin discussion regarding the impact of different types of peer variables in an international setting, we also included conventional peer attachment, delinquent peer attachment, number of religious peers, and peer commitment. We also included a number of demographic and behavioral controls which included age, gender, residential location, smoking, sexual activity, and alcohol consumption. Results indicated that parental and school attachment predicted a lower likelihood of involvement in general crime, while delinquent peer attachment predicted higher levels. Additionally, school attachment predicted a lesser likelihood of property crime involvement. Finally, parental, school, and peer attachment all predicted a lesser likelihood of involvement in violence, while delinquent peer attachment and peer commitment predicted a greater likelihood of involvement. Findings and shortcomings of the study are also discussed.
... An example of the importance of salient group identity in neighborhoods concerns the production of local social norms. Neighborhood, community, and school social norms influence health behaviors such as tobacco and alcohol use among adolescents (Chuang et al. 2005(Chuang et al. , 2009Eisenberg and Forster 2003;Ennett et al. 1997;Frohlich et al. 2002;Lipperman-Kreda et al. 2010;Lovato et al. 2010). The notion of salient groups may also come into play as a moderator of ''neighborhood effects'' if individuals' interactions with their neighborhood's service, physical, or social environment differs depending on their affiliation with other salient class-based groups. ...
Social class gradients in children’s health and development are ubiquitous across time and geography. The authors develop a conceptual framework relating three actions of class—material allocation, salient group identity, and inter-group conflict—to the reproduction of class-based disparities in child health. A core proposition is that the actions of class stratification create variation in children’s mesosystems and microsystems in distinct locations in the ecology of everyday life. Variation in mesosystems (e.g., health care, neighborhoods) and microsystems (e.g., family structure, housing) become manifest in a wide variety of specific experiences and environments that produce the behavioral and biological antecedents to health and disease among children. The framework is explored via a review of theoretical and empirical contributions from multiple disciplines and high-priority areas for future research are highlighted.
... The association between heavy weekly drinking and strategy variety (i.e., greater emphasis on regulatory and enforcement strategies) was more pronounced among adolescents with high educational levels than among those with low levels. This could be due to adolescents with high educational levels being more sensitive to regulations (Chuang et al., 2009) and less exposed to drinking among peers (Currie et al., 2012), which can influence the individual's own use (Ali & Dwyer, 2010). Such differential impacts imply that alcohol policies as implemented in Noord-Brabant between 2007 and 2011 could increase socioeconomic-related inequalities in alcohol consumption (Currie et al., 2012). ...
Objective:
Cross-sectoral alcohol policy is recommended to reduce youth alcohol consumption, but little evidence is available on its effectiveness. Therefore, we examined whether regions and municipalities in the Dutch province of Noord-Brabant with stronger cross-sectoral alcohol policy showed larger reductions in alcohol consumption among adolescents aged 12-15.
Method:
Strong regional cross-sectoral alcohol policy was defined as participation in a regional alcohol prevention program. Strong municipal cross-sectoral alcohol policy was operationalized by measures on (a) sector variety: involvement of different policy sectors, and (b) strategy variety: formulation of different policy strategies. Relevant data from policy documents were searched for on the Internet. Data on trends in alcohol consumption were extracted from the 2007 and 2011 cross-sectional Youth Health Monitor that includes a random subset of adolescents aged 12-15 (n = 15,380 in 2007 and n = 15,437 in 2011). We used multilevel regression models.
Results:
Two of the three regions in which municipalities participated in a regional alcohol prevention program showed a larger reduction in weekly drinking than the region in which municipalities did not participate (-12.2% and -13.4% vs. -8.3%). Municipalities with strong compared to weak sector variety showed a larger increase in adolescents' age at consuming their first alcoholic drink (0.63 vs. 0.42 years). Municipalities with strong strategy variety showed a decrease (-3.8%) in heavy weekly drinking, whereas those with weak variety showed an increase (5.1%). Cross-sectoral alcohol policy did not affect trends in other alcohol outcomes.
Conclusions:
Our results suggest that strong cross-sectoral alcohol policy may contribute to reducing some aspects of youth alcohol consumption. Monitoring policy implementation is needed to assess the full impact.
... This study focused on one aspect of children's social environments that might influence PA-support from parents for engaging in PA. Family influences on child and adolescent behavior have been more commonly studied in the context of risk behaviors, albeit with mixed results [4,10,13,14,16,21,23,27,28,41]. Such studies have noted a tendency for parents to increase communication about specific behaviors after they become aware of their child's engagement in that behavior, rather than before the child has engaged in the behavior. ...
Background:
A large body of research has established an association between parental support for children's physical activity (PA) and children's PA. However, there has been little attention to the relative influences of parent and child perceptions of that parental support.
Purpose:
To examine agreement among parent and child perceptions of parent support for PA and whether these perceptions are associated with objectively-measured moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) among those children.
Methods:
Cross-sectional associations between PA of children measured via accelerometers and child-reported and mother-reported perceptions of parental support for children's PA were assessed via mixed-model regression analyses in a cohort of 693 5th graders. Results Children's perceptions of parental support for PA were consistent with those of their mothers. Nonetheless, in models that included both children's and mothers' perceptions of parental support for PA, mothers' perceptions, but not children's perceptions, were significantly associated with children's PA. Associations were consistent for Total MVPA, After School MVPA, and Evening MVPA, with stronger associations among males than among females.
Conclusion:
Maternal support may influence children's PA. Studies which consider only children's accounts of parental support may overlook important mechanisms.
... In the 2012 National Survey of Drug Use and Health, approximately 53 % of adolescent heavy drinkers also reported using cigarettes [Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) 2013]. Given the common comorbidity of alcohol and tobacco use, it has been hypothesized that their use may be the result of similar motivations, such as emotion regulation (Lippke et al., 2012), or due to similar psychosocial influences such as family or peer modeling and interactions (Chuang et al., 2009;Kobus, 2003). Thus, it may be advantageous for interventions to target both substances simultaneously. ...
This meta-analysis synthesizes studies of brief interventions (BIs) that targeted alcohol consumption and reported both alcohol and tobacco outcomes. It examines whether BIs reduce alcohol and tobacco use for adolescents and young adults among interventions that (1) directly targeted tobacco and alcohol use, or (2) did not target tobacco use but measured it as a secondary outcome. Multiple databases and grey literature sources were searched (1980–2012) resulting in the identification of 18 randomized or controlled quasi-experimental studies (5949 participants). Analyses were conducted using random effects inverse-variance weighted three-level models. BIs were associated with a significant reduction in alcohol consumption relative to control groups [ = 0.11, 95 % CI (0.04, 0.17)] but not with a significant decrease in tobacco use [ = 0.07, 95 % CI (−0.01, 0.16)]. Directly addressing tobacco was not a significant moderator affecting tobacco use outcomes. Post-hoc exploratory analysis revealed potential questions to address with future research.
... Additional intervention efforts are needed to reduce FSWs' involvement of alcohol use by improving their refusal self-efficacy and reducing the impacts from family, peers, and clients. Consistent with previous studies (Ary et al., 1993;Borsari & Carey, 2001;Chuang, Ennett, Bauman, & Foshee, 2009), our study suggests that FSWs' alcohol use is associated with alcohol use by family members and peers, highlighting the importance of family and peer factors in an individual's behavioral formation and change. However, we found that experience of client-perpetrated pressure or violence was associated with less alcohol use among FSWs. ...
Excessive alcohol use is considered as a health-risk behavior that may produce negative health outcomes. Examining predictors of alcohol use in social and individual contexts can advance understanding of why people indulge in alcohol use. Our research on female sex workers (FSWs) examined associations among several social context factors (alcohol use by family members, alcohol use by peers, and client-perpetrated pressure or violence), refusal self-efficacy, and alcohol use. Seven hundred FSWs were recruited from two cities in southern China. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the direct effects of alcohol use by family members, alcohol use by peers, and client-perpetrated pressure or violence on FSWs' alcohol use. In addition, the mediation effects of refusal self-efficacy were also examined in the SEM model. Results showed that alcohol use by family members and alcohol use by peers significantly predicted FSWs' alcohol use; the prediction effect of alcohol use by peers on FSWs' alcohol use was stronger than that of alcohol use by family members; client-perpetrated pressure or violence directly predicted FSWs' alcohol use and indirectly influenced FSWs' alcohol use through refusal self-efficacy; refusal self-efficacy directly predicted FSWs' alcohol use. Administrators of effective intervention programs focused on alcohol use in China should adopt a multilevel approach to reduce negative social influences, particularly the influence from peer and sex work establishments on FSWs' alcohol use. Meanwhile, training to improve refusal self-efficacy should also be included in the intervention programs to reduce FSWs' alcohol use.
... Peer factors associated with use include perceived peer use (D'Amico and McCarthy, 2006;D'Amico et al., 2001;Ellickson et al., 2003a;Henry et al., 2005), peer approval, and offers of substances by peers (Trucco et al., 2011). Family factors thought to protect against use include higher levels of familism, parental respect (Soto et al., 2011;Unger et al., 2002), and parental education (Bachman et al., 2011), whereas use of substances by a close adult or sibling is associated with increased risk of use by the adolescent (Bauman et al., 1990;Chuang et al., 2009;Nonnemaker et al., 2011;Wu et al., 2009). ...
Objective:
Because initiation of inhalants at an early age is associated with a range of health and behavioral problems, including an increased likelihood of inhalant dependence (based on criteria from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition), we conducted discrete time survival analyses to determine the role of time-invariant and time-variant (over five waves) risk and protective factors as well as grade in inhalant initiation among middle school students.
Method:
The current study uses data from 3,215 students who were initially surveyed as sixth graders in 2008-2009 and were resurveyed in seventh and eighth grades. Students were part of a larger substance use prevention trial conducted in greater Los Angeles. The sample is racially/ethnically diverse (54% Hispanic/Latino, 16% Asian, 14% White, 3% African American) and 51% male.
Results:
Seventeen percent of youths initiated inhalants during middle school. Higher drug refusal self-efficacy, familism (i.e., values related to family), and parental respect were associated with decreased odds of inhalant initiation. Having a significant adult or older sibling who used substances was associated with increased risk of initiation, but adult influence declined linearly and by the end of seventh grade was no longer a risk factor. Self-rated popularity was associated with inhalant initiation in seventh grade only, and perceived substance use by peers was associated with inhalant initiation in sixth grade only.
Conclusions:
The influence of adults, siblings, and peers on inhalant use may be strongest in sixth and seventh grade. Interventions to prevent inhalant initiation should target sixth and seventh graders, address influence by family and peers, and provide skills training to improve drug refusal self-efficacy.
... In other words, there may be characteristics of communities that systematically explain the strength of associations between RPFs and behavior problems. As we noted above, several studies have found such systematic influences of community context on the salience of RPFs (Beyers et al. 2001;Chuang et al. 2009;Ennett et al. 2008;Foshee et al. 2009). If sets of communities can be defined where RPFs operate similarly, then it may be possible to contextualize community assessment in terms of a referent group rather than assessing each community individually. ...
To test the assumption embedded in state-of-the-art, community assessment and decision-making regarding prevention of underage drinking: that there is minimal variation in the way that risk and protective factors (RPF) are associated with underage drinking across communities. Three large datasets provided the same measures of adolescent alcohol use and RPFs. Multilevel ordered-logistic regression models were carried out separately for each dataset and separately for males and females in 8th and 10th grades, testing random slopes for each RPF index. Predicted school-level coefficients were derived from these models, representing the association between RPFs and alcohol use. The variation in associations between RPFs and alcohol use across schools was greatest for antisocial peer risk and community protection; the lowest variation across schools was found for family cohesion and individual antisocial behavior. Ranges in predicted coefficients indicate large differences across schools for many RPFs. Bivariate correlations indicated that school-level associations vary across RPFs in expected directions. Policy makers should recognize that the magnitude of associations between RPFs and adolescent alcohol use vary considerably across communities, and that such variability is greater for certain RPFs than others. These findings have implications for policies regarding how prevention resources are targeted within and across communities.
... To further isolate the independent influence of family economic hardships on self-assessed health problems through marital conflicts and supportive parenting, this study controls for parental education and parental depressive symptoms. This is not only because, to a significant degree, adolescent health is an outcome of the direct investment of parental knowledge and available resources (Becker 1993;Chuang et al. 2009), but also because parental depressive symptoms can influence their children's outcome (Goodman and Gotlib 2002;Jaser et al. 2005). ...
Research has documented the relationship between family stressors such as family economic hardship and marital conflict and adolescents' mental health symptoms, especially depressive symptoms. Few studies, however, have examined the processes whereby supportive parenting lessens this effect and the progression of mental health and physical health symptoms in adolescence. The present study investigates the influences of chronic family economic hardship on adolescents' multiple health problem symptoms (i.e., symptoms of anxiety, and depression and physical complaints) through parents' marital conflict, and supportive parenting; it also examines how there adolescents' health problems mutually influence one another throughout adolescence. We used Structural Equation Modeling to analyze data from a longitudinal sample of European American mothers, fathers, and target adolescents (N = 451, 53 % female) to examine direct and indirect effects. Findings generally supported the hypothesized model. Chronic family economic hardship contributed to mental and physical health problems of adolescents. This influence largely was mediated through supportive parenting. Moreover, supportive parenting buffered marital conflict on depressive symptoms of adolescents. Also, there was a tendency for females to show more stable depressive symptoms than males. The study demonstrates key mediating pathways and additional moderating influences based on the family stress model and also highlights the importance of improving health resources for adolescents.
Objective: The current study investigated how tipping points, a phenomenon in which an individual's threshold for perceiving a change has been exceeded, may be asymmetrical between self-tipping points and those applied to others and how experiences with alcohol affect these judgments. Participants: Undergraduates (N = 300). Methods: Participants reported their drinking frequency, quantity, and parental alcohol use, and evaluated tipping points by assessing how many drinks over the course of how many days they would perceive as problematic alcohol use in an online survey. Results: Participants, on average, reported lower tipping points indicative of problematic drinking behaviors for themselves, as compared to their peers. Results also revealed that quantity of alcohol consumption as well as parental alcohol use and participant age contributed to determining problematic consumption tipping points. Conclusions: Considerations should be given to how these tipping point judgments may affect drinking behaviors. Additionally, there is evidence that current consumption may cloud these judgments.
This study explored adolescents’ reasons for involving themselves, or not, in risk-taking behavior, in two vulnerable areas of North Jakarta. The sample was purposively selected among households with adolescents ranging from 12 to 18 years old living in the two areas. The study involved 401 parents (8% female; 92% male; mean age 45.3 years) and 414 adolescents (57.49% female; 42.51% male; mean age 14.9 years). Parents’ demographic data included educational level, employment status, family income, and expenditure. Adolescents were asked about their perceptions of their relationships with their parents, whether they had been involved in eight risky behaviors (smoking, consuming alcohol, substance use, brawling, crime, physical fighting, heavy petting, and premarital sex), and reasons for engaging in risky behaviors or not. The comparison of proportions of eight risky behavior was tested by different test procedures, namely Z test, Chi-Square and Marascuillo multiple comparison. Results revealed that older adolescents were more likely to be involved in risk-taking, and boys were more likely to engage in risky behaviors than girls. The study also indicated that curiosity and peer pressure were the main reasons adolescents engaged in risky behaviors. Advice from family members, fear of God, and fear of being sinful were reasons adolescents did not engage in risky behaviors.
The current study extends knowledge regarding the individual contribution of different adverse experiences to mental health symptoms in late adolescence by including the perception of how upsetting each experience was to the adolescent and the age at the first occurrence. We also sought to move beyond sum scores of adverse experiences by using a person-centered approach to classifying individuals with similar co-occurrence of adversities. The data came from a longitudinal study of maltreatment on adolescent development (N = 454). Self-reported childhood adversities were assessed at Wave 4 (average of 7 years postbaseline) and examined with respect to current mental health symptoms (depression, PTSD, anxiety, and externalizing). Although the adversity sum score was a potent predictor of all mental health outcomes, the results indicated that the use of a sum score obscures information about the importance of individual adversities. Additionally, the influence of age of occurrence varied based on the adversity and outcome, while the perception of the event did not add much unique variance. Finally, the latent class analyses provided unique information about the patterns of co-occurring adversity in this sample, and that membership in either of the multiple-adversity classes was associated with more mental health symptoms.
Objective:
Low parental involvement and monitoring are risk factors for adolescent cigarette use. Assessments of parental involvement and monitoring by youth and parents may capture an additional source of risk: differences in perceptions of these parenting behaviors. This study tested for unique contributions of youth-reported parental involvement and monitoring and youth-parent discrepancies in reporting to first cigarette use in girls.
Method:
Data were drawn from interviews at ages 8-17 with 1,869 girls (57.3% Black, 42.7% White) and their primary caregivers (94% mothers) in the Pittsburgh Girls Study. Cox proportional hazards regression analyses were conducted to predict first cigarette use as a function of girls' reports of parental involvement and monitoring, magnitude and direction of youth-parent reporting discrepancies, and the interaction between them, adjusting for neighborhood, socioeconomic, and individual level factors.
Results:
High magnitude of discrepancy in parental involvement reports (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.14, 95% confidence interval [CI] [1.03, 1.26]) and lower perceived parental involvement by girls (HR = 1.14, CI [1.03, 1.27]) were associated with an elevated risk for first cigarette use. Girls' reports of low parental monitoring also predicted first cigarette use (HR = 1.14, CI [1.06, 1.21]).
Conclusions:
Girls whose parents have limited awareness of their whereabouts and friends (i.e., low monitoring) are at an elevated risk for trying cigarettes, but parent-daughter differences in perceived awareness do not affect risk. By contrast, girls who perceive a lower degree of parental involvement than their parents do are at increased risk. Monitoring is one component of parenting that may reduce smoking risk; shared perspectives on the parent's level of involvement are similarly important.
Adolescents often display similar health behaviour to their peers. Peer effects on health behaviour may be influenced by the school context, and by the country of residence. According to the complex contagion theory, these effects for risky health behaviour may be different from protective health behaviour. This paper combines social network analysis and multilevel analysis to estimate the relative share of variation of risky and protective health behaviours at different levels of the population structure: individuals, peer (friendship) networks, and schools. To achieve these aims, multiple membership models are applied to estimate variations in smoking, drinking, cannabis use, and physical activity at the individual, peer, and school levels, taking into account the differences between countries. The data come from a social network survey carried out in 50 schools in six medium-sized European cities. Networks of peers were found to have similar risky health behaviour when it comes to smoking, drinking, and cannabis use. This was not true, however, for positive health behaviour, i.e. physical activity. For smoking, drinking, and cannabis use, the peer network accounted for almost half of the total behaviour variance. In comparison, the school variance was quite small for all health behaviour. The results suggest that interventions are best carried out at the peer-network level, particularly for behaviour vulnerable to complex contagion, such as smoking and cannabis use.
Background:
Neighborhood disadvantage (ND) and population density (PD) are two community characteristics contextualizing friends' influence on adolescent alcohol use. However, these community characteristics are rarely examined for potential joint contributions, although it is possible that the way friends are selected or influence alcohol use are shaped by both ND and PD. In addition, prior studies examining ND or PD contexts on friend influence rarely discern between socialization and selection.
Objectives:
The current study examined how selection and socialization influences on adolescent alcohol use are shaped by unique and joint contexts of ND and PD.
Methods:
Adolescents from Waves I and II of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent and Adult Health (Add Health) were included in three models assessing friends' socialization of alcohol us initiation and binge drinking, and selection of drinking friends. ND and PD were tested for mediation and moderation individually and jointly.
Results:
Results indicated that socialization of drinking initiation was stronger in high ND contexts, and that continued binge drinking was stronger in low ND contexts. PD indirectly influenced socialization of initiation and binge drinking maintenance via a negative association with number of drinking friends. PD and ND jointly influenced the association between initial binge drinking and next-year selection of drinking friends, such that selection was stronger within areas related to lower levels of drinking friends. Conclusions/Importance: Current results indicate that PD and ND shape friends' influence on alcohol use in unique ways. These must be accounted for to better understand bidirectional effects of friend influence.
Purpose:
We examined the relationship between alcohol-specific and nonalcohol-specific parental characteristics with occasional alcohol drinking in early adolescence and probed potential school district variation.
Methods:
A total of 1,581 fourth and sixth graders (age range: 10-12 years) were ascertained from 17 elementary schools in a cohort study conducted in northern Taiwan in 2006, with three waves of follow-up between 2007 and 2009. Information on alcohol-specific and nonalcohol-specific parental attributes was obtained from the first two waves of self-administered paper-and-pencil questionnaires; occasional drinking, defined by having drunk on three or more occasions in the past year, was assessed at fourth wave. School district characteristics were retrieved from official statistics and self-report. Multilevel analyses were used to evaluate strength of association, with stratification by disadvantaged status of school districts.
Results:
Thirteen percent (95% confidence interval [CI] = 10.1%-15.8%) of young adolescents reported to drink occasionally; higher grade level, childhood drinking experience, lower parental education, maternal drinking, and positive parental attitude toward drinking were significant predictors. Nonalcohol parental predictors, including not living with both parents (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 2.34, 95% CI = 1.21-4.53) and parental involvement/reinforcement (aOR = .44; 95% CI = .22-.87), were only significant for the children of socioeconomically disadvantaged school districts. As to alcohol-specific parental characteristics, the effects of maternal drinking appear more salient in socioeconomically advantaged school districts (aOR = 2.63; 95% CI = 1.66-4.18).
Conclusions:
Alcohol-specific and nonalcohol-specific parental influence may operate differentially across school districts sub-grouped by socioeconomic attributes. Preventive strategies raising the awareness of underage drinking and strengthening parenting skills should be devised and implemented in the perspective of social context.
Drawing on theories of social structure and normative exposure, we examine how the neighborhood context of socioeconomic advantage and racial composition affects race/ethnic differences in youth binge drinking. Using data from Waves 1 and 2 of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, logistic regressions reveal significant racial differences, with whites having higher odds of binge drinking than other groups. We also find that neighborhood advantage and racial composition have moderating effects on binge drinking; black youths’ odds of binge drinking are significantly lower than whites’ odds in highly advantaged neighborhoods, and Hispanics living in racially integrated neighborhoods have significantly lower odds of binge drinking than Hispanics living in white neighborhoods.
Background: The Youth Behaviour Risk Factor Surveillance Survey (YBRFSS) 2011 in Malaysia reported the national prevalence of ever and current smoking among Form 1, 2 and 4 of government secondary school students as 9.1% and 8.7% respectively. Whereas, the prevalence of ever and current smokers among males was 17.6% and 14.6% respectively. Among females 3.9% were ever smokers while 2.0% were current smokers. This study was therefore conducted to determine the prevalence and factors associated with smoking among the religious secondary school students in a district of Selangor. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 899 students from three religious schools in the district selected using cluster sampling and self- administered questionnaire was used as instrument. Data was analyzed using chi-square and multivariate logistic regression to identify the independent factors for smoking. Results: The prevalence of ever smoking was 10.1% which was higher in males (18.6%) than females (3.9%). However, the prevalence of current smoker was only 2.9% which was also higher in males (6.2%) and than females (0.5%). The independent factors for smoking were males; age group 14-15years and 16-17 years; wanting to accept cigarette from friend; having brother who smoke and a father who smokes. Conclusion: Prevalence of ever smoker was relatively higher when compared to YBRFSS. However, the prevalence of current smoker was lower than YBRFSS. The results also highlight the importance of smoke -free family background. Efforts in smoking prevention should also be focused on modifiable factors such as peer influence.
Objectives: The relationship between social network risk (alcohol using close friends), perceived peer closeness, substance use, and psychiatric symptoms was examined to identify risk and protective features of college students’ social context.
Participants: Six hundred and seventy undergraduate students enrolled in a large southeastern university. Methods: An on-line survey was administered to consenting students.
Results: Students with risky networks were at a 10 fold increase of hazardous drinking, 6 fold increase for weekly marijuana use, and 3 fold increase for weekly tobacco use. College students’ who feel very close to their peers were protected against psychiatric symptoms, yet were at increased risk for marijuana use. Perceived closeness of peers was highly protective against psychiatric symptoms, adding a natural preventive effect for a population at great risk for mental illness.
Conclusions. Results support targeting college students through network oriented preventive interventions to address substance use as well as mental health.
Objectives:
The relationship between social network risk (alcohol-using close friends), perceived peer closeness, substance use, and psychiatric symptoms was examined to identify risk and protective features of college students' social context.
Participants:
Six hundred and seventy undergraduate students enrolled in a large southeastern university.
Methods:
An online survey was administered to consenting students.
Results:
Students with risky networks were at a 10-fold increase of hazardous drinking, 6-fold increase for weekly marijuana use, and 3-fold increase for weekly tobacco use. College students' who feel very close to their peers were protected against psychiatric symptoms yet were at increased risk for marijuana use. Perceived closeness of peers was highly protective against psychiatric symptoms, adding a natural preventive effect for a population at great risk for mental illness.
Conclusions:
RESULTS support targeting college students through network-oriented preventive interventions to address substance use as well as mental health.
Background
Smoking susceptibility has been found to be a strong predictor of experimental smoking. This paper examined which student- and school-level factors differentiated susceptible never smokers from non-susceptible never smokers among a nationally representative sample of Canadian students in grades 9 to 12.
Methods
Student-level data from the 2008–2009 Canadian Youth Smoking Survey were linked with school-level data from the 2006 Census, and one built environment characteristic (the density of tobacco retailers surrounding schools). These data were examined using multilevel logistic regression analyses.
Results
The likelihood of a never smoker being susceptible to smoking significantly varied across schools (p = 0.0002). Students in this study were more likely to be susceptible never smokers if they reported low self-esteem, held positive attitudes towards smoking, used alcohol or marijuana, had close friends who smoked, and came from homes without a total ban on smoking. The school location (rural versus urban), the socioeconomic status of the neighbourhood surrounding a school, and the density of tobacco retailers that were located within 1-km radius of each school were not associated with students' smoking susceptibility.
Conclusion
These findings underscore the continued need to develop school-based tobacco use prevention policies and/or programs that enhance students' self-esteem, address tobacco use misinformation and substance use, and include strategies targeting friends who smoke, and students who come from homes without a total ban on smoking.
Drawing from primary socialization theory, we hypothesized that as Mexican-heritage youth engage in targeted parent-child communication against alcohol, they are more likely to disapprove of and consider the negative consequences of drinking alcohol. In turn, such antialcohol perceptions are likely to encourage them to intervene if a friend was to drink alcohol. The analyses were based on self-reported longitudinal data from 1,149 Mexican-heritage youth in sixth to eighth grades (M = 12 years, SD = .61). As males and females engaged in targeted parent-child communication against alcohol, they were more likely to consider the negative consequences of alcohol consumption. Consequently, they reported that they would be more likely to intervene by talking to the friend or an adult. Disapproving of alcohol consumption played a minor role for male and female Mexican-heritage youth.
Objective:
In order to understand the factors that differentiate adolescents who have tried smoking from those who have become established smokers, this study examined which student- and school-level factors differentiated current smokers from experimental smokers among a nationally representative sample of Canadian secondary school students.
Method:
Student-level secondary data from the 2008-2009 Canadian Youth Smoking Survey was linked with school-level data from the 2006 Census and one built environment characteristic, and examined using multilevel logistic regression analyses.
Results:
The current smoking rates varied (P<0.001) across schools. The number of tobacco retailers surrounding the schools was associated with current smoking when adjusting for student characteristics. Additionally, students were more likely to be current smokers if they were: male, in higher grades, believed that smoking can help when they are bored, reported low school connectedness, used marijuana, had a sibling or close friend who smoked, and had no smoking bans at home.
Conclusions:
These study findings suggest that school anti-smoking strategies need to target males, increase students' attachment to their school, address tobacco-related beliefs, and include interventions targeting smoking siblings and friends. The government should consider zoning restrictions to limit sales of tobacco products near schools.
To promote an effective approach to prevention, the community diagnosis model helps communities systematically assess and prioritize risk factors to guide the selection of preventive interventions. This increasingly widely used model relies primarily on individual-level research that links risk and protective factors to substance use outcomes. I discuss common assumptions in the translation of such research concerning the definition of risk factor elevation; the equivalence, independence, and stability of relations between risk factors and problem behaviors; and community differences in risk factors and risk factor-problem behavior relations. Exploring these assumptions could improve understanding of the relations of risk factors and substance use within and across communities and enhance the efficacy of the community diagnosis model. This approach can also be applied to other areas of public health where individual and community levels of risk and outcomes intersect.
This study examines the effect of neighborhood, school, and family indicators on adolescent drinking. The Toronto Drugs, Alcohol, and Violence International (DAVI) data were collected in 2001-2002. The sample was stratified both by region (city vs. outskirts) and by the socio-economic status of the schools. Two schools from each stratum were randomly selected and 910 students completed the survey. The survey contains extensive measures of substance use, violence, and mental health. The study uses cluster analysis and multinomial logits to examine the variation in the effect of schools, family, and demographic indicators on alcohol use across neighborhood contexts. Study implications and suggestions for future research are included. The study was partially funded by NIDA grant #R01-DA11691-01A1.
Differences between proactive and reactive aggression subtypes on self-reported measures of empathy, social competence, and
expectation for reward were examined among 433 middle school students (65.4% White, 33.9% Black). As hypothesized, males scored
higher on proactive and reactive aggression scales and lower on empathy measures than females. K-means cluster analysis yielded the following four distinct groups: reactive, proactive, proactive/reactive aggressive, and
uninvolved. Overall, uninvolved (nonaggressive youth) had higher empathy and social competence scores and lower expectation
of reward for the use of aggression. The reactive and proactive groups did not differ significantly on study variables. Limitations
and implications are discussed.
This study examined risk and protection for adolescent problem behavior and depressive symptomatology in an average-risk sample of 11th graders. Using a socioecological perspective, we aggregated risk factors for adolescent problem behavior and depressed mood by 3 social contexts: i.e., family and peer contexts, and a context comprising the most important nonparental adult (VIP) in respondents' lives. Protective factors associated with these 3 contexts were also included in the analyses. We tested separate models (including outcome-specific risk and protective factors) for predicting problem behaviors and depressive symptoms; the models demonstrated divergent validity. Risk and protective factors accounted for 49% of the variance in problem behavior and 49% in depressive symptoms. Tests of interactions between risk-aggregates and protective factors yielded several significant cross-context buffering effects in the problem behavior model, but none in the depressive symptoms model. Parents' and VIP's perceived sanctions buffered adolescents against high risk for problem behavior emanating from the peer context. Additionally, perceived peers' sanctions buffered youths against risk emanating from each of the 3 contexts.
This study suggests a multivariate-structural approach combining factor analysis and cluster analysis that could be used to examine neighborhood effects on an individual's health. Data were from the Taiwan Social Change Survey conducted in 1990, 1995, and 2000. In total, 5,784 women and men aged over 20 years living in 428 neighborhoods were interviewed. Participants' addresses were geocoded with census data for measuring neighborhood-level characteristics. The factor analysis was applied to identify neighborhood dimensions, which were used as entities in the cluster analysis to generate a neighborhood typology. The factor analysis generated three neighborhood dimensions: neighborhood education, age structure, and neighborhood family structure and employment. The cluster analysis generated six types of neighborhoods with combinations of the three neighborhood dimensions. Multilevel binomial regression models were used to assess the effects of neighborhoods on an individual's health. The results showed that the biggest health differences were between two neighborhood types: (1) the highest concentration of inhabitants younger than 15 years, a moderate education level, and a moderate level of single-parent families and (2) the highest educational level, a median level of single-parent families, and a median level of elderly concentrations. Individuals living in the first type had significantly higher chances of having functional limitations and poor self-rated health than the individuals in the second neighborhood type. Our study suggests that the multivariate-structural approach improves neighborhood measurements by addressing neighborhood diversity and examining how an individual's health varies in different neighborhood contexts.
Although illicit drug activity occurs within local communities, past quantitative research on drug markets and violent crime in the United States has been conducted mainly at the city level. The authors use neighborhood-level data from the city of Miami to test hypotheses regarding the effect of drug activity and traditional indicators of social disorganization on rates of aggravated assault and robbery. The results show that drug activity has robust effects on violent crime that are independent of other disorganization indicators. The authors also find that drug activity is concentrated in neighborhoods with low rates of immigration, less linguistic isolation and ethnic heterogeneity, and where nondrug accidental deaths are prevalent. The authors find no independent effect of neighborhood racial composition on drug activity or violent crime. The results suggest that future neighborhood-level research on social disorganization and violent crime should devote explicit attention to the disorganizing and violence-producing effects of illicit drug activity.
This study examined a family-directed program's effectiveness in preventing adolescent tobacco and alcohol use in a general population.
Adolescents aged 12 to 14 years and their families were identified by random-digit dialing throughout the contiguous United States. After providing baseline data by telephone interviews, they were randomly allocated to receive or not receive a family-directed program featuring mailed booklets and telephone contacts by health educators. Follow-up telephone interviews were conducted 3 and 12 months after program completion.
The findings suggested that smoking onset was reduced by 16.4% at 1 year, with a 25.0% reduction for non-Hispanic Whites but no statistically significant program effect for other races/ethnicities. There were no statistically significant program effects for smokeless tobacco or alcohol use onset.
The family-directed program was associated with reduced smoking onset for non-Hispanic Whites, suggesting that it is worthy of further application, development, and evaluation.
Despite the promise of geocoding and use of area-based socioeconomic measures to overcome the paucity of socioeconomic data in US public health surveillance systems, no consensus exists as to which measures should be used or at which level of geography. The authors generated diverse single-variable and composite area-based socioeconomic measures at the census tract, block group, and zip code level for Massachusetts (1990 population: 6,016,425) and Rhode Island (1990 population: 1,003,464) to investigate their associations with mortality rates (1989-1991: 156,366 resident deaths in Massachusetts and 27,291 in Rhode Island) and incidence of primary invasive cancer (1988-1992: 140,610 resident cases in Massachusetts; 1989-1992: 19,808 resident cases in Rhode Island). Analyses of all-cause and cause-specific mortality rates and all-cause and site-specific cancer incidence rates indicated that: 1) block group and tract socioeconomic measures performed comparably within and across both states, but zip code measures for several outcomes detected no gradients or gradients contrary to those observed with tract and block group measures; 2) similar gradients were detected with categories generated by quintiles and by a priori categorical cutpoints; and 3) measures including data on economic poverty were most robust and detected gradients that were unobserved using measures of only education and wealth.
Rural/urban differences were studied in self-reported stress (life events, daily hassles and conflict), coping and behavioural problems in a community sample of adolescents. Despite challenging socioeconomic conditions in rural areas, levels of stress and ways of coping were similar in rural and urban adolescents. However, urban males reported more conflict and externalizing behaviours than females and rural males. Stress, coping, and behavioural problems were interrelated but approach coping did not moderate the influence of stress on psychological functioning. Results suggest that adolescents may utilize many coping strategies that serve little benefit in terms of behavioural outcomes.
Despite the rapid growth of research on neighborhood influences on children, little of this research may be useful to prevention scientists. Most studies have ignored processes by which neighborhood conditions influence individual outcomes. To encourage neighborhood research that can better guide the development of preventive interventions, we propose a model that focuses attention on mediating and moderating processes, is appropriate for studies interested in individual differences in outcomes, acknowledges the transactions between residents and neighborhoods, and is sensitive to how neighborhood influences may differ for children at different developmental stages. Furthermore, we argue that greater attention to several methodological issues also can make neighborhood research more useful for the next generation of prevention programs to help low‐income urban families and children cope successfully with the challenges posed by their neighborhoods.
"The Truly Disadvantagedshould spur critical thinking in many quarters about the causes and possible remedies for inner city poverty. As policy makers grapple with the problems of an enlarged underclass they—as well as community leaders and all concerned Americans of all races—would be advised to examine Mr. Wilson's incisive analysis."—Robert Greenstein,New York Times Book Review "'Must reading' for civil-rights leaders, leaders of advocacy organizations for the poor, and for elected officials in our major urban centers."—Bernard C. Watson,Journal of Negro Education "Required reading for anyone, presidential candidate or private citizen, who really wants to address the growing plight of the black urban underclass."—David J. Garrow,Washington Post Book World Selected by the editors of theNew York Times Book Reviewas one of the sixteen best books of 1987. Winner of the 1988 C. Wright Mills Award of the Society for the Study of Social Problems.
The objective of the current study was to examine the relationships among neighborhood disadvantage, perceived neighborhood quality, family processes, and child internalizing problems within the framework of social disorganization theory. The sample consisted of 189 low-income, European American and Mexican American children and their mothers. The data analyses partially supported our hypotheses that mothers’ perceptions of neighborhoods mediated the relation of neighborhood disadvantage to family processes, which in turn were associated with child internalizing problems. The value of contextual factors and social disorganization theory in studying the development of child adjustment problems was supported by the current study. Research issues and practical implications were discussed.
Rural and urban parents' perceptions of parenting were examined on four dimensions of child development (physical, intellectual, social, and emotional) by using Q-sort methodology. Items identifying parent behaviors were rank-ordered from "most like me" to "least like me" by each parent. A repeated-measures analysis of variance was performed on the four dependent variables. Rural parents emphasized intellectual and emotional development significantly more than did urban parents, and emphasized social development significantly less than did urban parents. Fathers emphasized intellectual development significantly more and social development significantly less than did mothers. Mothers and fathers both emphasized intellectual development more for boys than girls.
Using a community-based sample of 870 adolescents in Los Angeles, we examine the influences of neighborhood and family contexts on the transition to first sex. We find that the risk of sex is not solely due to neighborhood socioeconomic status and race, but rather, that it is the social conditions that covary with these structural attributes that are important. Teens living in single-parent or reconstituted families have higher risks, as do teens who report high levels of parental overcontrol. When compared with White girls, Black and Hispanic boys exhibit higher risk and Hispanic girls exhibit lower risk of having sex.
To understand the way children develop, Bronfenbrenner believes that it is necessary to observe their behavior in natural settings, while they are interacting with familiar adults over prolonged periods of time. His book offers an important blueprint for constructing a new and ecologically valid psychology of development.
This prospective study examined the association between perceived neighborhood violence and maternal monitoring and the moderating role of 2 sources of social support (coparents and friends/neighbors) among low-income African American single mothers. Mothers' ratings of neighborhood violence were associated with monitoring both concurrently and longitudinally; however, this association was qualified by each source of social support. When neighborhood violence is perceived as being high by mothers, high levels of social support from coparents and from friends and neighbors are associated with more maternal monitoring. The findings point to the importance of understanding the social context in which African American single mothers live when developing and implementing parenting prevention and intervention programs targeting high-risk families.
■ Abstract This paper assesses and synthesizes the cumulative results of a new "neighborhood-effects" literature that examines social processes related to problem behaviors and health-related outcomes. Our review identified over 40 relevant studies published in peer-reviewed journals from the mid-1990s to 2001, the take-off point for an increasing level of interest in neighborhood effects. Moving beyond traditional char- acteristics such as concentrated poverty, we evaluate the salience of social-interactional and institutional mechanisms hypothesized to account for neighborhood-level varia- tions in a variety of phenomena (e.g., delinquency, violence, depression, high-risk behavior), especially among adolescents. We highlight neighborhood ties, social con- trol, mutual trust, institutional resources, disorder, and routine activity patterns. We also discuss a set of thorny methodological problems that plague the study of neigh- borhood effects, with special attention to selection bias. We conclude with promising strategies and directions for future research, including experimental designs, taking spatial and temporal dynamics seriously, systematic observational approaches, and benchmark data on neighborhood social processes.
Multilevel data are used to assess how three interrelated contexts-family, peer group, and neighborhood-influence the social functioning of urban African-American adolescent youth, a group believed to be especially "at-risk" due to high rates of exposure to contextual disadvantage and its associated ills. The analysis is designed to test the various pathways that neighborhoods influence, both directly and indirectly (via their impact on families and peers), two adolescent outcomes-prosocial competency and problem behavior. Neighborhood effects are relatively modest, operate indirectly via their effect on parenting and peer groups, and are transmitted through neighborhood social organization (i.e., collective efficacy), rather than neighborhood structure. Parental monitoring and peer quality are higher in neighborhoods with greater collective efficacy, which also moderates the effect of parental monitoring on both youth outcomes.
This study compared substance use perceptions and behavior of African American youth in metropolitan (urban and suburban) and no metropolitan (rural) settings. Based on an analysis of data from a sub sample of African Americans (N = 3,009) who participated in the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS: 88) and follow-ups in the 1990 and 1992, the findings revealed that, overall, substance abuse is perceived as a relatively serious problem at school, and by the twelfth grade most adolescents have tried alcohol and a substantial proportion have used marijuana. Early substance use and peer influence are major determinants of later substance use within each context. However, some important differences exist in the prediction of alcohol and marijuana use within each social context, suggesting a need to take into account the relative importance of selective sociodemographic, risk and protective factors for substance use within different social-environmental settings.
Each year since 1975, about 17,000 seniors have participated in a national survey conducted in some 130 high schools to assess students' changing lifestyles, values, and preferences. This publication is one in a series of annual monographs to disseminate many of the epidemiological findings from the study. It reports the results of the national survey of drug use and related attitudes and beliefs among 8th, 10th, and 12th graders. Distinctions are made among important demographic subgroups in these populations based on gender, college plans, region of the country, population density, parents' education, and race and ethnicity. Following the introductory chapter, chapter 2 presents key findings. Study design is reviewed in chapter 3. Chapters 4 and 5 explain the prevalence and trends in drug use. Chapter 6 discusses the initiation rates by grade level. Chapter 7 explains the degree and duration of drug highs. Chapter 8 discusses attitudes about drug use, and chapter 9 reviews the social milieu. Chapter 10 sums up other findings from the study. Volume 1 was preceded by an advance summary publication of its key findings. (Contains 5 appendixes, 146 tables and 103 figures.) (JDM)
To examine the peer context of adolescent substance use, social network analysis was used to measure three domains of attributes of peer networks: social embeddedness, social status, and social proximity to substance users. The sample was a panel of 5,104 sixth, seventh, and eighth graders in three public school systems surveyed every 6 months for five assessments. Hierarchical generalized linear models showed that adolescents less embedded in the network, with greater status, and with closer social proximity to peer substance users were more likely to use substances. Also, adolescents in less dense networks and networks with higher smoking prevalence were more likely to smoke and use marijuana. Results establish the utility of social network analysis for measuring peer context and indicate that conventionality of relationships—having friends in the network, being liked but not too well liked, and having fewer friends who use substances—is most beneficial.
Abstract Conventional wisdom says that social capital is more common among families in rural communities than urban communities. Using data from the 1988 wave of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we compare the prevalence, type, and extent of social exchanges in these places. Results indicate that families living in rural areas are more likely to exchange exclusively with kin than are families living in urban areas. In particular, families living in rural areas are more likely to receive money help from kin than families in urban areas. Results on patterns of giving are more complex, with rural origin families with younger household heads more likely to give support to kin, and rural origin families with older heads less likely to provide such support, as compared to otherwise similar families of urban origin. Finally, only modest urban-rural differences in amounts exchanged (in dollars) are found among otherwise similar families. Overall, some of the urban-rural differences in patterns of exchange are explained by different family characteristics; however, key urban-rural differences remain, probably reflecting differences in norms and the availability of institutional support services in different areas.
The goal of this study was to explore whether supportiveness from a parent or a friend moderated the effects of the supportive person's drinking on the trajectory of adolescent alcohol abuse/dependence symptoms. High-risk adolescents recruited from shelters and a matched sample of adolescents recruited from the sheltered adolescent's former neighborhood completed assessments at baseline, 6, 12, and 18 months. Measures included the Social Network Interview, assessing the drinking and supportiveness of everyone in the network. The alcohol module of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children was also administered. Hierarchical Linear Modeling identified predictors of the trajectory of alcohol symptoms of the 401 adolescents over 18 months. The results showed that the baseline levels of parental drinking predicted increased symptoms over time only for those with low parental support. In contrast, the baseline level of peer alcohol use predicted increased symptoms over time only for those with high peer support. The pattern of results did not differ for shelter youth compared to neighborhood controls.
This paper assesses and synthesizes the cumulative results of a new "neighborhood-effects" literature that examines social processes related to problem behaviors and health-related outcomes. Our review identified over 40 relevant studies published in peer-reviewed journals from the mid-1990s to 2001, the take-off point for an increasing level of interest in neighborhood effects. Moving beyond traditional char-acteristics such as concentrated poverty, we evaluate the salience of social-interactional and institutional mechanisms hypothesized to account for neighborhood-level varia-tions in a variety of phenomena (e.g., delinquency, violence, depression, high-risk behavior), especially among adolescents. We highlight neighborhood ties, social con-trol, mutual trust, institutional resources, disorder, and routine activity patterns. We also discuss a set of thorny methodological problems that plague the study of neigh-borhood effects, with special attention to selection bias. We conclude with promising strategies and directions for future research, including experimental designs, taking spatial and temporal dynamics seriously, systematic observational approaches, and benchmark data on neighborhood social processes.
Data from the Gautreaux residential mobility program, which relocated low-income African American families from high poverty, segregated inner-city, Chicago neighborhoods into mostly European American, suburban neighborhoods, and mostly European American or mostly African American neighborhoods within Chicago, are used to assess whether children's later involvement with the Illinois criminal justice system is associated with the characteristics of their placement neighborhoods. I find that suburban placement provides a strong protective benefit for boys, primarily for drug offenses. Conversely, girls placed in suburban neighborhoods were more likely to be convicted of a criminal offense. Qualitative data indicate that children placed in the suburbs experienced a dramatic reduction in direct exposure to gangs and drugs. Children placed in higher SES neighborhoods within Chicago still attended lower performing schools and the surrounding neighborhoods offered many opportunities for participation in delinquent activities.
Various hypotheses were identified regarding the manner in which community context might influence the association between two dimensions of parenting—control and corporal punishment—on child conduct problems. The authors used hierarchical linear modeling with a sample of 841 African American families to test these hypotheses. Consistent with the evaporation hypothesis, the results indicated that the deterrent effect of caretaker control on conduct problems becomes smaller as deviant behavior becomes more widespread within a community. The findings for corporal punishment supported the normative parenting argument. Although there was a positive relationship between caretaker corporal punishment and child conduct problems in communities where physical discipline was rare, there was no association between the two variables in communities where physical discipline was widely prevalent. These results suggest that a particular parenting strategy may be more effective in some neighborhood environments than others. The theoretical implications of this view are discussed.
Cluster analysis refers to a family of methods for identifying cases with distinctive characteristics in heterogeneous samples and combining them into homogeneous groups. This approach provides a great deal of information about the types of cases and the distributions of variables in a sample. This paper considers cluster analysis as a quantitative complement to the traditional linear statistics that often characterize community psychology research. Cluster analysis emphasizes diversity rather than central tendency. This makes it a valuable tool for a wide range of familiar problems in community research. A number of these applications are considered here, including the assessment of change over time, network composition, network density, person-setting relationships, and community diversity. A User''s Guide section is included, which outlines the major decisions involved in a basic cluster analyses. Despite difficulties associated with the identification of optimal cluster solutions, carefully planned, theoretically informed application of cluster analysis has much to offer community researchers.
We tested the relationships and predictive power of family factors on rural, suburban, and urban adolescent substance use. A representative statewide survey of 11th grade students for gender, place of residence, and ethnicity was conducted. No significant differences were found between rural, suburban, and urban adolescents for substance use. For family sanction variables across all locations, adolescent substance involvement was significantly lower the more they perceived their families would stop them or care if they got drunk, smoked cigarettes, or used marijuana. Rural and suburban youth who reported that their parents talked to them about the dangers of smoking and getting drunk were less involved in substance use. While controlling for location, gender, and ethnicity, regression analyses showed that family sanctions against smoking cigarettes and marijuana explained a modest proportion of the variance in substance use. Finally, family talking about the dangers of cigarettes, family involvement in schools and belief that their families cared about them predicted lower substance use regardless of location, although minimal variance was explained. The findings have implications for social service providers regarding location settings, prevention, education, and intervention programming.
We evaluated the association of neighborhood types and externalizing behavior problems in 99 predominately African-American urban children (M = 10.7 years), and the extent to which qualities of the family environment mediated or moderated these associations. Three distinct neighborhood types were identified using cluster analysis of census and crime data. Results showed that children living in very poor neighborhoods with moderate crime levels had more behavior problems than children living in relatively low crime, low poverty areas. Family stress mediated the association between neighborhood type and behavior problems. Family cohesion moderated the association of neighborhood type and adjustment: children living in the most impoverished neighborhoods with high levels of family cohesion demonstrated fewer behavior problems relative to their peers in low-cohesive households in the same area, and similar levels of behavior problems relative to children in highly cohesive homes in low crime, low poverty areas.
The current study provides new information on the etiology of adolescent problem behaviors in African American youth by testing
the importance of known predictors, namely parenting measures (monitoring, support, and communication), peers, and neighborhood
characteristics across rural and non-rural developmental contexts. More specifically, the study examined whether rural versus
non-rural developmental contexts moderated the relationships between known predictors and a variety of problem behaviors (alcohol
use, drug use, delinquency, and violence). Data were collected from N = 687 rural and N = 182 non-rural African American adolescents (mean age = 15.8 years). Findings indicate that both parenting constructs and
peer deviance had significant effects on problem behaviors and that these effects were consistent across rural and non-rural
developmental contexts. The study results are discussed in terms of their implications for ecological frameworks for testing
problem behavior etiology.
The objective of the current study was to examine the relationships among neighborhood disadvantage, perceived neighborhood quality, family processes, and child internalizing problems within the framework of social disorganization theory. The sample consisted of 189 low-income, European American and Mexican American children and their mothers. The data analyses partially supported our hypotheses that mothers’ perceptions of neighborhoods mediated the relation of neighborhood disadvantage to family processes, which in turn were associated with child internalizing problems. The value of contextual factors and social disorganization theory in studying the development of child adjustment problems was supported by the current study. Research issues and practical implications were discussed.
Research on neighborhood effects on youth educational outcomes has been mainly an American tradition. This study reviews the European evidence on this subject and brings new evidence, focusing on Helsinki, the capital of Finland. Register-based data and multi-level statistical analysis are used to assess the existence and form of neighborhood effects on the educational careers of young people in Helsinki. The results indicate that there is no effect on the completion of secondary education generally, but there is an effect on the type of education that is completed. This effect is nonlinear: the affluent neighborhoods differ from the rest of the neighborhoods. The paper concludes by stating that research on neighborhood effects should better recognize the existence of “soft” effects.
Disquieting rates of alcohol and drug use among adolescent girls call for original research on gender-specific risk and protective factors for substance use. Particularly salient are data on theory-driven factors that can inform prevention programming. Surveying 781 adolescent girls and their mothers, we found relationships between girls' use of alcohol, prescription drugs, and inhalants and girls' after-school destinations, body images, depression, best friend's substance use, maternal drinking behavior, mother-daughter interactions, and family norms surrounding substance use. Study findings have implications for the design of responsive gender-specific prevention programs.
Manual de datos estadísticos de Estados Unidos. Incluye datos demograficos, económicos e industriales por estados además de estadísticas del gobierno sobre las políticas del mismo. La presente edición incluye, también, un perfil de los distritos del congreso.
To investigate how community alcohol outlet density may be associated with alcohol access among adolescents.
Data were collected through a three-wave panel study with youth aged 14-16 at baseline using computer-assisted telephone interviews. Study participants were recruited from 50 zip codes with varying alcohol outlet density and median household income in California. Data analyses were conducted using multilevel, linear growth models and data from 1028 youth (52% male, 51% white).
After taking into account individual-level factors and zip code median household income, zip code alcohol outlet density was significantly and positively related to the initial levels of the likelihood and frequency of getting alcohol through various sources including commercial outlets, shoulder tapping, home or family members, and underage acquaintances.
High levels of alcohol outlets in the community enable youth access to alcohol through commercial outlets, family, and social networks.
"Xperience" is an innovative alcohol and drug prevention program that has adopted a multilevel, community-based strategy to promote drug-and-alcohol free social activities, venues and norms among urban youth ages 14-20. The intervention aims to strengthen protective factors and reduce risk factors for alcohol and other substance use among high school age youth by addressing multiple factors at the individual, peer, community and city level. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the process of building the different levels of this intervention during the 3-year formative phase. We will explain: (1) Why we chose to adopt a multilevel and participatory strategy, (2) Formative research leading to the intervention model, (3) The theoretical framework underlying the methodology, (4) Pilot intervention development (Years One and Two), (5) Current program methods and outcome goals, and lastly, (6) Some of the lessons learned, goals achieved, and plans for the future. This descriptive account of building a multilevel intervention aims to serve as a useful guide for others wishing to develop similar approaches, and for theorizing about some of the common challenges involved in this process.
To assess the roles of a neighborhood measure of social capital, family affluence, and risk taking on adolescent self-rated health.
This study uses data from the 2384 Canadian students in Grades 9-10 (56.5% female) from the World Health Organization's Health Behavior in School-Aged Children Survey 2001/2002, a nationwide representative sample.
Using binary logistic regression models, it is found that higher levels of risk taking and lower levels of neighborhood social capital and family affluence are independently associated with worse overall perceptions of health. These influences are not found to interact with each other.
Neighborhood social capital, risk taking, and family affluence are important factors to consider when addressing the health of adolescents. Results are discussed in terms of possible health promoting interventions.
Unsupervised peer contact in the after-school hours was examined as a risk factor in the development of externalizing problems in a longitudinal sample of early adolescents. Parental monitoring, neighborhood safety, and adolescents' preexisting behavioral problems were considered as possible moderators of the risk relation. Interviews with mothers provided information on monitoring, neighborhood safety, and demographics. Early adolescent (ages 12-13 years) after-school time use was assessed via a telephone interview in grade 6 (N = 438); amount of time spent with peers when no adult was present was tabulated. Teacher ratings of externalizing behavior problems were collected in grades 6 and 7. Unsupervised peer contact, lack of neighborhood safety, and low monitoring incrementally predicted grade 7 externalizing problems, after controlling for family background factors and grade 6 problems. The greatest risk was for those unsupervised adolescents living in low-monitoring homes and comparatively unsafe neighborhoods. The significant relation between unsupervised peer contact and problem behavior in grade 7 held only for those adolescents who already were high in problem behavior in grade 6. These findings point to the need to consider individual, family, and neighborhood factors in evaluating risks associated with young adolescents' after-school care experiences.
Despite the rapid growth of research on neighborhood influences on children, little of this research may be useful to prevention scientists. Most studies have ignored processes by which neighborhood conditions influence individual outcomes. To encourage neighborhood research that can better guide the development of preventive interventions, we propose a model that focuses attention on mediating and moderating processes, is appropriate for studies interested in individual differences in outcomes, acknowledges the transactions between residents and neighborhoods, and is sensitive to how neighborhood influences may differ for children at different developmental stages. Furthermore, we argue that greater attention to several methodological issues also can make neighborhood research more useful for the next generation of prevention programs to help low-income urban families and children cope successfully with the challenges posed by their neighborhoods.
To assess: (a) the relative impact of monitoring and peer involvement among six cohorts of African-American youth in their mid-adolescent years, over a decade of research in one urban area, and (b) the consistency of the impact of the two influences over time.
Baseline data were collected from six cohorts involving 1279 low income African-American youth aged 13 to 16 years involved in community based studies conducted over a decade in an urban area. Self-reported behaviors, and perceptions of parental monitoring and peer risk-involvement were assessed through structured questions. Data were analyzed by frequency distribution, one-way ANOVA, and multiple logistic regression.
There was a rapid increase in sexual activity and substance use behaviors during mid-adolescence. Monitoring had a protective influence on substance use behaviors and sexual activity, but had no impact on condom use or drug trafficking. Peer involvement influenced all evaluated risk behaviors. The influences overall did not statistically change over time.
Despite the marked increase in risk behaviors during mid-adolescence, monitoring and peer involvement both influenced adolescent behaviors across each cohort.
Using data from the 1990 Survey of Children and Parents, we explored direct and indirect associations between neighborhood conditions and adolescents' well-being. Analyses of data from 348 parents and their 14- to 17-year-old children indicated that neighborhood characteristics were directly related to adolescent outcomes (i.e., psychological adjustment and school problems). Second, parenting behaviors and peer characteristics significantly mediated this association. Third, the relative adaptiveness of parenting behaviors and peer attributes was contingent on neighborhood characteristics. Finally, neighborhood, parenting, and peer variables each had a unique contribution to adolescent outcomes; thus, stress across these domains was additive and posed cumulative risk for adolescents' well-being.
Previously, both positive and negative effects of residential instability on various health outcomes have been described. The present study tests these effects in a European context, using two different data-sources (1) neighbourhood level data on socioeconomic deprivation and residential instability, and (2) individual-level community survey data to assess quality of life. Multilevel regression analyses showed that socioeconomic deprivation was negatively associated with several dimensions of quality of life, in stable neighbourhoods, while no such effect was observed in average or unstable neighbourhoods. Thus, when accounting for interaction effects, residential instability appeared to protect against negative effects of neighbourhood poverty and, therefore, may be beneficial for residents' quality of life.
The influence of neighborhoods on adolescent behaviors has received increasing research attention. In the present study, we use structural equation models to specify pathways from neighborhoods to adolescent cigarette and alcohol use through parental closeness, parental monitoring, parent substance use, and peer substance use. We use a national sample with 959 adolescents 12 to 14 years of age whose residential addresses were matched with 1990 Census tracts to provide neighborhood characteristics. We found that for adolescent cigarette use low socioeconomic status (SES) neighborhoods were associated with increased parental monitoring, which was further associated with decreased adolescent cigarette use. For adolescent alcohol use, high SES neighborhoods were associated with increased parent drinking, which was further associated with increased adolescent alcohol use. Low SES neighborhoods were associated with increased parental monitoring and increased peer drinking, which were in turn associated with decreased and increased adolescent alcohol use, respectively.
Peer and adolescent substance use are highly correlated, but this relationship is not fully understood. In particular, the relative contributions of selection and socialization to substance use progression have not been established. Students (n=2453) in the seven middle schools in one school district were assessed at school at the beginning and end of the sixth, seventh, eighth grade and beginning of the 9th grade. Self-reported smoking and drinking and the number of substance using friends were assessed 5 times over 3 years. The relationship between peer and adolescent substance use were assessed in parallel processes as part of an autoregressive latent trajectory model. Substance use and the number of substance using friends increased in linear fashion from T1 to T5. Initial substance use predicted an increase in the number of substance using friends over time, indicating an effect of selection, and the initial number of substance using friends predicted substance use progression, providing evidence of socialization. The magnitudes of these relationships were similar. Bivariate, lagged autoregressive analyses of the successive relationships from one assessment to the next showed consistent, significant associations from peer use to adolescent substance use. The association from adolescent to peer use was significant only from 7th to 8th grade. The findings provide evidence of reciprocal influences, but socialization was a more consistent influence than selection.
Low adult supervision during the after-school hours has been associated with numerous problem behaviors among youth. We examined the extent to which this relationship pertains to the evening hours and aggressive behaviors.
Cross-sectional self-report data were obtained from a nationally representative sample of 14,818 youth in grades 6-10 in the 2001-2002 Health Behaviors of School-aged Children Survey. The relationship between spending evenings out with friends and involvement in problem behaviors was examined using logistic regression analyses.
One-fifth of U.S. youth surveyed reportedly spent five or more evenings out with friends each week. After adjusting for grade, race/ethnicity, parental education, parental involvement, and perception of neighborhood safety, boys and girls who reported spending five or more evenings out were 4.3 and 3.1 times, respectively, than boys and girls who spent less than two evenings out, more likely to be involved in four or more physical fights in the past year; 3.0 and 4.0 times, respectively, more likely to have bullied another at least once a week at school; 2.7 and 4.9 times, respectively, more likely to have carried a weapon 6 or more days in the past month; 3.8 and 4.8 times, respectively, more likely to consume alcohol at least once a month; and 3.3 and 7.2 times, respectively, more likely to have smoked every day.
Although the majority of youth who spend most evenings out do not frequently participate in problem behaviors (69.7%), their consistently increased risk for substance use and aggressive behaviors warrants attention. Further examination of specific evening activities, extracurricular involvement, neighborhood context, adult supervision, and parental monitoring is required.