Escalation Of Substance Use Research Articles

The role of self-control in early escalation of substance use: A time-varying analysis.

The role of self-control in early escalation of substance use: A time-varying analysis.

Ethnic and Gender Differences in Drinking and Smoking among London Adolescents

Objectives. The study examines stages of drinking and smoking careers and transitions from initiation to regular use among adolescents, as a function of ethnic status and gender. Design. The data were collected using a confidential, self-completion questionnaire assessing onset and frequency of drinking and smoking. The sample consisted of 1777 adolescents, between the ages of 11 and 14, drawn from eight secondary schools in south-west London. Results. For both smoking and drinking, white children were more likely to have ever smoked tobacco and drunk alcohol, and were also more likely to progress from initiation to regular use than were either black or Asian children. Asian children reported the latest onset and the lowest prevalence rates for both drinking and smoking. Males reported experimenting with both cigarettes and alcohol at an earlier age than females, although a lower proportion of males report regular and lifetime involvement with both alcohol and tobacco. Furthermore, a significantly higher proportion of females who try smoking go on to do so regularly. Discussion. The importance of sociocultural factors in relation to race and gender in predicting onset and escalation of substance use is discussed. The fact that age of onset does not appear to be a significant determinant of transition rate from initiation to regular use is also explored.

A 2-year longitudinal analysis of the relationships between violent assault and substance use in women.

Women experience alarming levels of physical and sexual assault, which may lead to escalation of substance use. Reciprocally, evidence from cross-sectional studies indicates that substance use may increase risk of assault. To date, directionality of this relationship remains unclear. This issue is addressed by the present 3-wave longitudinal study in which a national probability sample of 3,006 women were followed for 2 years. Dependent measures were obtained at each wave of the study and included questions about lifetime and new assault status, alcohol abuse, and drug use. Wave 1 use of drugs, but not abuse of alcohol, increased odds of new assault in the subsequent 2 years. Reciprocally, after a new assault, odds of both alcohol abuse and drug use were significantly increased, even among women with no previous use or assault history. For illicit drug use, findings support a vicious cycle relationship in which substance use increases risk of future assault and assault increases risk of subsequent substance use.

Peer ecology of male adolescent drug use

AbstractThis report represents the perspective that adolescent substance use is best understood as an adaptation to an ecology defined jointly by families and peers. Hypotheses were tested on a sample of 206 boys in the Oregon Youth Study. The analyses proceeded in four steps. First, it was found that the transition from middle to high school was a period of rapid growth in smoking for boys with a prior history of low sociometric status. Second, a structural equation model was tested showing that deviant peer association in early adolescence mediated the relation between peer and family experiences in middle childhood and later substance use. Third, an observational study of the boys with their best friends revealed that active support for rule breaking and substance use was associated with immediate escalation in substance use during the transition to high school. Finally, it was found that ineffective parental monitoring practices were highly associated with the boy's involvement in a deviant peer network. In fact, a high degree of similarity was found between boys and their best friends for substance use when parental monitoring was low. These analyses show that substance use in adolescence is embedded within the proximal peer environment, which in turn, emerges and is amplified within a context of low adult involvement and monitoring.