Intergenerational associations in onset of cannabis use during adolescence: A data synthesis approach.

Abstract

The present study examined associations between parents' and their children's ages of onset of cannabis use using a data synthesis methodology to pool data from 3 similarly designed intergenerational studies. Regarding age of first use of cannabis, prospective data were collected at one or more assessments from early to late adolescence in each generation. The extent to which parent and offspring gender separately or jointly moderated intergenerational effects was examined. Data were harmonized from studies originating in the states of Washington (Bailey, Hill, Epstein, Steeger, & Hawkins, 2018), New York (Thornberry, Henry, Krohn, Lizotte, & Nadel, 2018), and Oregon (Capaldi, Kerr, & Tiberio, 2018) when the parents were in late childhood to early adolescence; analyses concerned 1,081 parents and their children from 971 unique families. Parents' and their children's age of cannabis use onset during adolescence were modeled using discrete-time survival analysis techniques. Although data were successfully synthesized across the studies, the primary hypothesis was not supported: parents' earlier age of first cannabis use during adolescence was not significantly associated with earlier onset of cannabis use in the offspring generation. Rather, parents' histories of any cannabis use in adolescence-regardless of timing-were linked with increased risk for early onset cannabis use by their children compared to parents with no history of use during adolescence. There were no significant parent, child, or parent-by-child gender moderation effects. Thus, prevention of adolescent onset of cannabis in one generation may have prevention benefits for the next. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).