Health and Developmental Consequences of Youth Drug Abuse

Research Findings from May, 2000 Director's Report

This section lists selected summaries from NIDA funded research projects that investigate the developmental implications of drug use. The summaries provided were selected from recent issues of the Director's Report to the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse. For a more comprehensive listing of NIDA funded projects see the Director's Report.

Effects of Adolescent Substance Use on Autonomy, Positive Activity Involvement, and Perceived Competence in Young Adulthood

Researchers at Arizona State University used data from a longitudinal study of a children of alcoholics and demographically matched controls to test the relationship between adolescent alcohol and drug use and later young adult autonomy, positive activity involvement, and perceived competence. Participants were assessed in three annual interviews in adolescence (mean age: 12.7 years at Time 1) and then again 5-7 years later, in young adulthood (median age: 20 years). Path analyses and latent growth curve models were used to test the effects of adolescent substance use on both self-reported and collateral-reported outcomes, controlling for correlated risk factors (parental alcoholism, adolescent psychopathology, and parental support), preexisting levels of the outcome, and concurrent young adult substance use. Results showed that adolescent drug and alcohol use were associated with lowered levels of young adult autonomy, positive action, and competence, and that these effects remained significant after controlling for a variety of adolescent risk factors, concurrent young adult drug use, and preexisting levels of youth adult outcome variables. Alcohol use effects were more complex. Adolescent heavy drinking was associated with less positive adult outcomes, but more in collateral reports than in self- reported outcomes. Moreover. young adult heavy drinking was either uncorrelated with or positively correlated with higher levels of perceived competence, suggesting different developmental significance of alcohol use in adolescence than in young adulthood. These findings suggest that prevention of drug abuse in adolescents can not only have proximal benefits such as reductions in impaired driving but also improve psychosocial outcomes such as autonomy and competence. Chassin, L., Pitts, S.C., and DeLucia, C. The Relation of Adolescent Substance Use to Young Adult Autonomy, Positive Activity Involvement, and Perceived Competence. Development and Psychopathology, 11(4), pp. 915-932, 1999.

Developmental Associations between Substance Use and Violence

In a study of the developmental associations between substance use and violence, investigators focused on the trends in each behavior throughout adolescence, how the behaviors covaried over time, and the symmetry of associations taking into account frequency and severity of each behavior. They also examined whether changes in one behavior affected changes in the other behavior over time. Six years of annual data were analyzed for 506 boys who were in the 7th grade at the first assessment. Concurrent associations between frequency of substance use and violence were relatively strong throughout adolescence and were somewhat stronger for marijuana than alcohol, especially in early adolescence. Type or severity of violence was not related to concurrent alcohol or marijuana frequency, but severity of drug use was related to concurrent violence frequency. Depending, to some degree, on the age of the subjects, the longitudinal relationships between substance use and violence were reciprocal during adolescence and slightly stronger for alcohol and violence than for marijuana and violence. Further, increases in alcohol use were related to increases in violence; however, when early alcohol use was controlled, increases in marijuana use were not related to increases in violence. Only in early adolescence was the longitudinal relationship between marijuana use and later violence especially strong. The strength of the longitudinal associations between violence and substance use did not change when common risk factors for violence and substance use were controlled. Overall, the data lend more support for a reciprocal than for a unidirectional association between substance use and violence. Prevention efforts should be directed at aggressive males who are multiple-substance users in early adolescence. White, H.R., Loeber, R., Stouthamer-Loeber, M., Farrington, D.P. Developmental Associations between Substance Use and Violence. Development and Psychopathology, 11(4), pp. 785-803, 1999.

Tobacco Smoking and Depressed Mood in Late Childhood and Early Adolescence

Building on previous observations about a suspected causal association linking tobacco smoking with depression, investigators at Johns Hopkins University used prospective data to study the temporal sequencing of tobacco smoking and depressed mood in late childhood and early adolescence. The sample consisted of 1731 youths (aged 8-9 to 13-14 years) attending public schools in a mid-Atlantic metropolitan area; they were assessed at least twice from 1989 to 1994. Survival analysis was used to examine the temporal relationship from antecedent tobacco smoking to subsequent onset of depressed mood, as well as from antecedent depressed mood to subsequent initiation of tobacco use. Tobacco smoking signaled a modestly increased risk for the subsequent onset of depressed mood but antecedent depressed mood was not associated with a later risk of starting to smoke tobacco cigarettes. This evidence is consistent with a possible causal link from tobacco smoking to later depressed mood in late childhood and early adolescence, but not vice versa. Wu, L.T. and Anthony, J.C. Tobacco Smoking and Depressed Mood in Late Childhood and Early Adolescence. American Journal of Public Health, 89(12), pp. 1837-1840, 1999.

Tobacco Smoking and Other Suspected Antecedents of Nonmedical Psychostimulant Use in the United States, 1995

This study investigates the extent to which tobacco smoking is associated with the nonmedical use of psychostimulants and the temporal order of the age of first use for tobacco and psychostimulants within a nationally representative sample of United States household residents. At the same time, alcohol use and other suspected determinants of psychostimulant use are investigated and held constant, using multiple regression models. Data were taken from public use files of the 1995 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse. Conditional logistic regression analyses were performed to derive estimated relative odds of using stimulants for tobacco smokers versus nonsmokers, holding constant other potentially distorting influences. The study found an independent association between tobacco smoking and nonmedical use of stimulant drugs, with and without adjustment for suspected confounding variables. Additional variables identified as being associated with lifetime stimulant use included lifetime alcohol use, being male, being 18-24 years of age, and not being married. This study provides recent evidence on tobacco smoking as one of the potentially malleable risk factors for the nonmedical use of stimulant drugs. Wu, L.T. and Anthony, J.C. Tobacco Smoking and Other Suspected Antecedents of Nonmedical Psychostimulant Use in the United States, 1995. Substance Use & Misuse, 34(9), pp. 1243-1259, 1999.

Predicting Violent Behavior

Data from the Seattle Social Development Project (SSDP), a prospective study involving a panel of youths followed since 1985 were used to replicate and extend findings on risk factors for youth. Data on potential risk factors for violence at age 18 years were measured at ages 10, 14, and 16 years. Changes in the strength of prediction over time were examined in the individual, family, school, peer and community domains. Attention was also given to the additive strength of increasing numbers of risk factors in the prediction of violence at age 18 years and the correct classification of youth having committed a violent act. At each age, risk factors strongly related to later violence were distributed among the five domain areas. Ten of 15, 20 of 25, and 19 of 21, risk factors measures at ages 10, 14, and 16, respectively were predictive of violent acts at age 18. Several risk factors were important across time, for example hyperactivity, low academic performance, peer delinquency, and availability of drugs in the neighborhood predicted violence at ages 10, 14, and 16 years. Analyses of the additive effects of risk factors revealed that youths exposed to multiple risks were more likely than others to engage in later violence. Compared to youth exposed to fewer than 2 risk factors, those exposed to 5 or more were 7 times more likely to have been violent at age 20 and 10 times more likely to have been violent at ages 14 and 16. The overall accuracy of predicting youths that would go on to commit violent acts was limited. Herrenkohl, T.I., Maguin, E., Hill, K.G., Hawkins, J.D., Abbott, R.D., and Catalano, R.F. Developmental Risk Factors for Youth Violence. Journal of Adolescent Health, 26(3), pp. 176-186, 2000.