Tracy Diaz

Parenting practices as predictors of substance use, delinquency, and aggression among urban minority youth: moderating effects of family structure and gender.

This study examined how parenting factors were associated with adolescent problem behaviors among urban minority youth and to what extent these relationships were moderated by family structure and gender. Sixth-grade students (N = 228) reported how often they use alcohol, smoke cigarettes, or engage in aggressive or delinquent behaviors; a parent or guardian reported their monitoring and other parenting practices. Findings indicated that boys and those from single-parent families engaged in the highest rates of problem behavior. More parental monitoring was associated with less delinquency overall, as well as less drinking in boys only. Eating family dinners together was associated with less aggression overall, as well as less delinquency in youth from single-parent families and in girls. Unsupervised time at home alone was associated with more smoking for girls only. Implications for prevention interventions are discussed.

Drug Abuse Prevention Among Minority Adolescents: Posttest and One-Year Follow-Up of a School-Based Preventive Intervention

Most drug abuse prevention research has been conducted with predominantly White middle-class adolescent populations. The present study tested a school-based drug abuse preventive intervention in a sample of predominantly minority students (N = 3,621) in 29 New York City schools. The prevention program taught drug refusal skills, antidrug norms, personal self-management skills, and general social skills in an effort to provide students with skills and information for resisting drug offers, to decrease motivations to use drugs, and decrease vulnerability to drug use social influences. Results indicated that those who received the program (n = 2,144) reported less smoking, drinking, drunkenness, inhalant use, and polydrug use relative to controls (n = 1,477). The program also had a direct positive effect on several cognitive, attitudinal, and personality variables believed to play a role in adolescent substance use. Mediational analyses showed that prevention effects on some drug use outcomes were mediated in part by risk-taking, behavioral intentions, and peer normative expectations regarding drug use. The findings from this study show that a drug abuse prevention program originally designed for White middle-class adolescent populations is effective in a sample of minority, economically disadvantaged, inner-city adolescents.

Preventing illicit drug use in adolescents: Long-term follow-up data from a randomized control trial of a school population

National survey data indicate that illicit drug use has steadily increased among American adolescents since 1992. This upward trend underscores the need for identifying effective prevention approaches capable of reducing the use of both licit and illicit drugs. The present study examined long-term follow-up data from a large-scale randomized prevention trial to determine the extent to which participation in a cognitive-behavioral skills-training prevention program led to less illicit drug use than for untreated controls. Data were collected by mail from 447 individuals who were contacted after the end of the 12th grade, 6.5 years after the initial pretest. Results indicated that students who received the prevention program (Life Skills Training) during junior high school reported less use of illicit drugs than controls. These results also support the hypothesis that illicit drug use can be prevented by targeting the use of gateway drugs such as tobacco and alcohol.

A Six-Year Follow-Up Study of Determinants of Heavy Cigarette Smoking Among High-School Seniors

Most adult cigarette smokers start smoking during adolescence. Few studies, however, have focused on adolescents that are heavy smokers. The present study examined how several risk and protective factors measured during early adolescence were associated with heavy smoking in a sample of high-school seniors. As part of a school-based survey, seventh-grade students (N=743) reported degrees of experimentation with psychoactive substances and several psychosocial factors deemed to be important in the etiology of smoking. Students were followed-up in the twelfth grade, when 12% (n=88) smoked a pack of cigarettes or more each day. Logistic regression analyses revealed that heavy smoking was predicted by several earlier variables: poor grades, experimentation with cigarettes or alcohol, a mother or many friends that smoked, and high risk-taking in the seventh grade. Antismoking attitudes and those of ones parents and friends predicted less later heavy smoking in girls only. Implications for smoking prevention are discussed.

SOCIAL SKILLS, COMPETENCE, AND DRUG REFUSAL EFFICACY AS PREDICTORS OF ADOLESCENT ALCOHOL USE* †

Numerous alcohol and drug abuse prevention trials have included social resistance training as a strategy for reducing early-stage adolescent alcohol use. Evaluations of these trials has shown them to be moderately effective, although the precise impact of the resistance training in comparison to other programmatic features has not been clearly identified. The current study examined the extent to which assertiveness and related social skills, personal competence (perceived cognitive mastery), and refusal efficacy predict alcohol involvement. Males were at greater risk for poor refusal skills and reported higher alcohol involvement. Cross-sectionally, youth characterized by poor social skill development reported lower refusal efficacy, lower grades, poor competence, and more alcohol use. Poor refusal efficacy was associated with more risk-taking, lower grades, less competence, and more alcohol use. Longitudinally, both poor refusal skills and risk-taking were associated with higher alcohol use. High personal competence was associated with lower alcohol use in both the eighth and tenth grades, but had no long-term effects on alcohol use. Findings highlight the close interplay between perceived competence and refusal skill efficacy, both of which should be included as essential components of school-based prevention strategies.

Linguistic acculturation associated with higher marijuana and polydrug use among hispanic adolescents

Hispanic sixth and seventh graders in 22 New York City middle schools (mean age: 12.66 years) completed self-report questionnaires with items related to drug use (cigarette smoking, alcohol use, and marijuana) use and linguistic acculturation at two assessments (N= 1299 at baseline; N = 1038 at 1-year follow-up). Adolescents who spoke English with their parents smoked marijuana more frequently than those who spoke Spanish with their parents at both surveys.By the 1-year follow-up, students who spoke English with their parents and bilingual students who spoke English and Spanish with their parents engaged in greater polydrug use than those who spoke Spanish with their parents.

Dynamic Growth Models of Self-Esteem and Adolescent Alcohol Use

Latent growth modeling was used to test dynamic relations between self-esteem and alcohol use in 740 middle school youth assessed at four time points. Self-esteem was characterized by a negative growth trajectory, whereas alcohol use increased steadily in a linear fashion. An initial simplified model positing bidirectional influences indicated an inverse relation between changes in self-esteem and alcohol use over time, but that initial levels of neither alcohol use nor self-esteem influenced changes in the other construct. With the addition of external covariates (i.e., gender and indices of social skills and competence risk), findings indicated that high initial levels of self-esteem fostered more increases in alcohol use compared to low initial levels of self-esteem. Findings further indicated that youth with poor competence skills advanced more rapidly in their alcohol use and declined more gradually in their self-esteem, and that poor social skills accelerated the rate of decline in self-esteem. Results indicate that self-esteem is part of a dynamic set of etiological forces that instigate early-stage alcohol use.

Ethnic and gender differences in psychosocial risk, protection, and adolescent alcohol use.

Theoretical models suggest that many diverse psychosocial factors contribute to the etiology of substance use among youth. It has been suggested that substance use is a function of the total number of etiologic factors, rather than a specific type or set of factors. This study examined whether cumulative psychosocial risk and protection measured in the 7th grade predicted alcohol use in the 9th grade across ethnically diverse samples of adolescents. Participants consisted of black (n = 775) and Hispanic (n = 467) inner-city youth and white suburban youth (n = 708). Prevalence rates for alcohol use and risk/protection varied more widely based on ethnic group compared to gender. Black youth reported the fewest risk factors and lowest levels of alcohol use, white youth reported the most risk factors and highest levels of alcohol use, and Hispanic youth reported the fewest protective factors and intermediate levels of alcohol use. Despite these differences, structural equation modeling indicated that a latent factor consisting of cumulative risk, protection, and their interaction significantly predicted later alcohol use for the combined sample as well as for each ethnic/gender subgroup. However, the proportion of variance explained in alcohol use varied across subgroups, and moderator analyses indicated that protection significantly buffered the effects of risk differentially across subgroups. The strongest protective effects were observed among black inner-city youth. Findings suggest that prevention approaches should focus on enhancing protection in addition to reducing risk, particularly among youth with lower levels of psychosocial protection.

Ethnic and gender differences in smoking prevalence among a longitudinal sample of inner-city adolescents

PURPOSE To determine if ethnic and gender differences in smoking (lifetime prevalence and 30-day prevalence) exist among a cohort of Asian, black, Hispanic, and white inner-city adolescents during the 3-year middle school period. METHODS Students in 22 urban schools completed self-report questionnaires and provided carbon monoxide breath samples at three annual assessments. Chi-square analyses were conducted to test for associations between ethnic group (Asian, black, Hispanic, and white) and smoking and to test for gender differences in smoking within each ethnic group. Additional analyses examined differences in smoking between two Hispanic subgroups (Puerto Rican and Dominican). RESULTS Ethnicity was associated with lifetime smoking prevalence at all three assessment points but was only associated with 30-day smoking prevalence at the 2-year follow-up. However, there were no differences in smoking between Puerto Rican and Dominican youth. Black girls reported higher lifetime smoking prevalence than black boys at all three assessments. At the 2-year follow-up, Asian boys reported higher lifetime smoking prevalence than Asian girls; Hispanic girls reported higher 30-day prevalence than Hispanic boys. CONCLUSIONS White and Hispanic adolescents were at higher risk for smoking relative to Asian and black adolescents. With the exception of white youth, gender differences were found within each ethnic group.

Predictors of cigarette smoking among inner-city minority youth

Limited information is available concerning the etiology of smoking among minority youth. We examined predictors of smoking among inner-city African-American and Latino seventh graders (N = 757). Enhanced self-reports of cigarette smoking were collected along with data concerning background, social environmental, and individual characteristics hypothesized to promote smoking. Results indicated that friends and peers were the most important social influences in predicting smoking. Several psychological factors, including feelings of hopelessness, low efficacy in life skills (social skills, communication skills, and refusal skills) and low self-esteem seemed related to increased susceptibility to smoking. We discuss implications of our findings for effective prevention programs for minority youth. J Dev Behav Pediatr 15:67–73, 1994. Index terms: smoking, minority youth, social influences.