Social Influences on Adolescent Alcohol Use Development

Oregon Research Institute, Springfield OR

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Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal is a continuation of a current research project studying the development of alcohol use among White and African-American youth and their families. Within a developmental social contextual model personal, family, peer, school and neighborhood influences on the development of alcohol use, and other drug use, among children and adolescents, as well as relations between alcohol use and other problem behaviors over time, are assessed. The design of the study is multilevel. Approximately 400 target children from three cohorts (9, 11, and 13 years of age) and their families were recruited from 58 different neighborhoods, thus allowing research questions to be examined across multiple contexts and multiple levels of the hierarchy (individual, family, and neighborhood levels). In addition, the recruitment of relatively equal numbers of African-American and White male and female target children from the three cohorts allows for the examination of developmentally and contextually significant research questions across both ethnic groups, at multiple levels of analysis. The continuation study proposes an additional 4 years of data collection, which would provide information from ages 9-20 years. Until recently, psychological research has had few tools to accommodate the interdependence of data collected across multiple contexts and multiple levels of the hierarchy (e.g., family, neighborhood). Fortunately, new analysis techniques are now available that are more suited to the study of hierarchical and longitudinal data. The proposed study will continue to use recent statistical methods for analyzing development and change, and multilevel data, allowing us to examine research questions at the individual, family, and neighborhood levels, using multi-method, multi-informant data. This longitudinal study of the dynamic interplay of multiple social contexts from pre-adolescence through adolescence and beyond is likely to lead to a greater understanding and identification of malleable risk and protective factors to be targeted for prevention and intervention programs for African-American and White youth and their families.