Owen Gallupe

Adolescent Risk Taking, Neighborhood Social Capital, and Health

PURPOSE To assess the roles of a neighborhood measure of social capital, family affluence, and risk taking on adolescent self-rated health. METHODS This study uses data from the 2384 Canadian students in Grades 9-10 (56.5% female) from the World Health Organizations Health Behavior in School-Aged Children Survey 2001/2002, a nationwide representative sample. RESULTS 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. CONCLUSIONS 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.

Morality, Self-Control, Deterrence, and Drug Use: Street Youths and Situational Action Theory

Utilizing a sample of homeless street youth, the authors apply Wikström’s situational action theory (SAT) to explaining drug use. The article examines the assertion that morality is the most important factor in explaining crime and that self-control and deterrence are key factors in understanding criminal behavior only at moderate levels of morality. Results reveal that morality has a strong effect on hard but not soft drug use, whereas the impact of deterrence on both forms of behavior is stronger than self-control. The proposed conditioning effects outlined in SAT do not have significant associations with drug use. Implications for the theory and avenues for future research are offered.

Social, health and drug use characteristics of primary crack users in three mid-sized communities in British Columbia, Canada

Aims: Despite the increased prevalence of crack use, research on street drug use in Canada currently focusses mainly on injection drug use and/or use in large urban centres. This studys objective was to assess the distinct socio-demographic characteristics, drug-use patterns, health profiles and risk behaviours as well as intervention needs of primary crack users in three mid-sized communities in British Columbia, Canada. Methods: Study participants were recruited with the help of local service agencies and peer recruiters, and assessed between July and November 2008 based on a protocol involving quantitative, qualitative and biological measures. Findings: The majority of the samples: reported unstable housing/homelessness; relied on social benefit payments for income generation; were under current criminal justice supervision; were poly-drug users, using other drugs like alcohol, cannabis or opioids; reported physical and mental health problems; were hepatitis C virus positive; had numerous crack-use episodes per day; frequently shared crack-use paraphernalia; and obtained crack pipe paraphernalia from makeshift items. Conclusions: This study documents crack use as a prevalent street drug use activity associated with extensive social and health risks and harms, which currently are not sufficiently addressed by the existing interventions in the study sites. Concerted attention to, and delivery of, targeted prevention and treatment interventions for the public health problem of crack use in Canada is urgently required.

Street Youth, Relational Strain, and Drug Use

Using data from 300 street youths interviewed in Toronto, Canada, this study draws on general strain theory to examine the influence of ‘relational’ strains (including background abuse, the severing of positive relationships by leaving home, and victimization at the hands of peers on the street) on the use of soft and hard drugs. Results reveal that the loss of quality street girlfriend/boyfriend relationships and the number of relationships ended by death are associated with soft drug use, while backgrounds of physical abuse and criminal victimization by peers influence hard drug use. Further, the effects of various forms of relational strain on hard drug use are conditioned by low self-esteem, delinquent peers, deviant values, and low self-efficacy. In contrast, the relationship between forms of relational strain and soft drug use are conditioned by greater self-esteem and fewer delinquent peers. The results are discussed in light of general strain theory and suggestions for future research are offered.

Emotional health of Canadian and Finnish students with disabilities or chronic conditions

The purpose of this study was to investigate the dimensions of emotional health in two population-based groups (Finland and Canada) of adolescents (ages 13 and 15 years) who self-identify as having a disability or chronic condition, as conceptualized by the WHO International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health. Data from the 2002 WHO Health Behaviour in School-aged Children survey were used to compare the prevalence of emotional health (items on feeling low, feeling nervous) within and between countries. Eighteen percent of the Canadian and Finnish samples indicated they had a long-time disability, illness or medical condition. Canadian adolescents with disability or chronic conditions felt low significantly more frequently than their classmates without disability or chronic conditions. In both countries, students with disabilities who had more than one functional difficulty were significantly more likely to report feeling low and nervous. These results illustrate that the severity of disability as measured by the number of functional difficulties, and not merely the presence of disability or chronic condition, or particular functional difficulties, may play an important role in the emotional health of adolescents. Health promotion programs may use this information to guide practice to support the emotional health of students with disabilities.

Leadership protection in drug-trafficking networks

Effective leadership is a crucial component in organisational success. This also applies to criminal networks that have the added challenge of operating in a high-risk hostile environment. While criminal networks commonly employ communicative and structural practices meant to buffer leadership from exogenous threats, there has been little empirical examination as to their effectiveness. In this article, we review the research literature on the various approaches that profit-oriented illicit networks employ to protect their leaders. We then present sociometric and qualitative data from a previously unexamined drug-trafficking network (the Prada cocaine-trafficking network) as a case study on leadership protection tactics employed by illicit entrepreneurial networks. Results of our analysis are discussed in the conclusion, along with study limitations and areas for future research.

The influence of positional and experienced social benefits on the relationship between peers and alcohol use

An assumption of peer influence research is that being connected to an alcohol-using peer group is associated with personal alcohol use. However, most research assesses peer influence through simply counting the number of peers involved in a particular behavior or the amount of that behavior within a person’s peer group. Rarely considered is the fact that behavioral pressures may only arise when the peer group actually provides substantial benefits to adolescents. This study examines whether adolescents who associate with peers who drink are as likely to be drinkers themselves when they receive high levels of social benefits as compared to adolescents who receive lower levels. Specifically, the authors examine how the effect of peer alcohol use on individual decisions to drink is conditioned by the social status and power that come with occupying sociometrically optimal positions (high popularity, centrality, density) and more concretely experienced social benefits (e.g. spending time/talking with/confiding in friends). Using the longitudinal Add Health data (n = 13,351), we find that peer alcohol use is most strongly related to personal alcohol use when a person is subject to greater social benefits in terms of both sociometric position and through closer one-on-one interactions with peers.

An Experimental Test of Deviant Modeling

Objectives: Test the effect of deviant peer modeling on theft as conditioned by verbal support for theft and number of deviant models. Methods: Two related randomized experiments in which participants were given a chance to steal a gift card (ostensibly worth CAN

Social status versus coping as motivation for alcohol use

15) from the table in front of them. Each experiment had a control group, a verbal prompting group in which confederate(s) endorsed stealing, a behavioral modeling group in which confederate(s) committed theft, and a verbal prompting plus behavioral modeling group in which confederate(s) did both. The first experiment used one confederate; the second experiment used two. The pooled sample consisted of 335 undergraduate students. Results: Participants in the verbal prompting plus behavioral modeling group were most likely to steal followed by the behavioral modeling group. Interestingly, behavioral modeling was only influential when two confederates were present. There were no thefts in either the control or verbal prompting groups regardless of the number of confederates. Conclusions: Behavioral modeling appears to be the key mechanism, though verbal support can strengthen the effect of behavioral modeling.

Social Network Position of Gang Members in Schools: Implications for Recruitment and Gang Prevention

The goal of this study was to examine whether there are two distinct groups of adolescent alcohol users: (1) low-level adolescent alcohol users who may be motivated by social status and (2) high-level users who are expected to be more concerned with coping. Social status is measured by the sociometric variables popularity and centrality. Variables that indicate a need to cope are depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem. Using waves I and II of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), support for these different etiological processes are found across high and lower level alcohol users. Among more normative (low level) alcohol users, social status plays a stronger role in predicting alcohol use than for more problematic (high level) alcohol users. For the high-level group, alcohol use appears to be a way to cope with depression. However, lower levels of self-esteem are only related to increased alcohol use among adolescents in the low-level group.