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Understanding the Relative Influence of Neighborhood, Family, and Youth on Adolescent Drug Use

NCJ Number
221433
Journal
Substance Use & Misuse Volume: 42 Issue: 14 Dated: 2007 Pages: 2159-2171
Author(s)
Douglas A. Wright; Georgiy Bobashev; Ralph Folsom
Date Published
2007
Length
13 pages
Annotation
This study used new variance components in examining the relative influence of the neighborhood, family, and individual on marijuana use by adolescents.
Abstract
For marijuana use in the past year, the role of the characteristics of the individual adolescent, compared to the influence of household and neighborhood, was prominent (79 percent of the variation). A similar result was found for the continuous scale variable of individual positive attitudes toward drug use (83 percent). For continuous constructs related to either household (parental monitoring) or neighborhood (neighborhood disorganization) the majority of variation still occurred at the individual level (67 percent and 51 percent, respectively), although they revealed a significant percentage of variation (approximately 30 percent) at the corresponding family or neighborhood levels as well. This study applied hierarchical modeling to the 1999 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA), which included a sample of approximately 25,000 youth ages 12 to 17. This study focused on the relative importance of the neighborhood, family, and individual in influencing marijuana use among adolescents. 2 tables and 22 references