Generally, the study found that peer substance use was associated with adolescent substance use in more neighborhood types than parental substance use. This may be due to the fact that as youth transition from childhood to adolescence, their interpersonal relationships change dramatically. Youths spend less time with their parents and more time in school and extracurricular activities with peers. Therefore, it is to be expected that even in different neighborhood contexts, peer behavior plays a more influential role than parental behaviors. In addition, the study found that peer smoking was linked with adolescent smoking in rural neighborhoods; whereas peer drinking was linked with adolescent drinking in urban neighborhoods, regardless of the racial composition or socioeconomic status of the neighborhood. Since the rate of tobacco use was consistently higher among rural compared to urban adolescents, it is possible that the influence of peer use is greater in rural areas. Although a higher rate of adolescent alcohol use was also reported in rural areas, a higher rate of adult alcohol use was found in urban areas. The interactive nature of high alcohol availability and a high prevalence of adult alcohol use in urban areas could intensify the influence of peer alcohol use. Future studies should clarify how physical and social availability of alcohol varies in rural and urban neighborhoods. In order to survey adolescents ages 12-14 and their parents living throughout the contiguous United States, 63,811 telephone numbers were generated by random-digit dialing. Of those numbers, 2,395 were estimated to be households with an eligible parent-adolescent pair; 1,316 parent-adolescent pairs completed the baseline telephone interview (a 55-percent response rate). The study was conducted from July 1996 to September 1997. 4 tables and 49 references