Race and Family Factors in Adolescent Drug Use

描述（由申请人提供）：本研究的目的是调查非裔美国人和白人青少年对毒品的认知和使用与家庭因素和其他社会环境的关系。这些信息将有助于设计和实施针对黑人青少年的预防干预方案。需要进行更多的研究，这一事实阻碍了为黑人青年毒品问题设计预防性干预措施的任务。虽然有几项研究提供了关于黑人青年吸毒和相关问题的证据，但关于一些被假设为吸毒现象关键因素的问题仍然存在。拟议的研究要求提供两年的资金，以调查黑人和白人青少年在使用毒品和酒精方面的差异。这项拟议中的研究有三大目标。首先是调查黑人和白人青少年的父母行为和做法作为吸毒因素的作用。第二个是调查在不同的家庭结构背景下，父母的行为和做法可能是黑人和白人青少年吸毒的一个因素。由于可能与家庭社会经济地位（SES）有关，我们也将调查家庭社会经济地位作为青少年吸毒的一个因素。第三个目的是调查同伴使用、宗教信仰和邻里凝聚力在父母行为和做法与黑人和白人青少年吸毒之间可能的中介作用。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The objective of this proposed research is to investigate family factors and other social contexts in relationship to the perception and use of drugs among African-American and white adolescents. Such information will be useful for the design and implementation of preventive intervention programs for black adolescents. The task of designing preventive interventions for drug problems for black youth is hampered by the fact that more research is needed. While several studies have provided evidence concerning drug use and related problems among black youth, questions remain about some of the factors hypothesized to be critical to the phenomenon of drug use. The proposed research requests two years of funding to investigate differences in the use of drugs and alcohol by black and white adolescents. The proposed study has three broad aims. The first is to investigate the role of parenting behavior and practices for black and white adolescents as a factor in the use of drugs. The second is to investigate how parenting behavior and practices in the context of different family structures may be a factor in the use of drugs for black and white adolescents. Because of possible links with family socioeconomic status (SES), we will also investigate family SES as a factor in adolescent drug use. The third aim is to investigate the possible mediating role of peer use, religiosity and neighborhood cohesion between parenting behavior and practices and drug use for black and white adolescents. This proposed research is structured as a secondary data analysis of existing survey data. The data we propose to use to examine these issues is from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (AddHealth), a nationally representative study of adolescents in grades 7 through 12 in the United States in 1995. The study was designed to investigate adolescent health, health behavior and relationships, and other issues. The data are longitudinal in design, and two waves of study data are available. Approximately 20,000 adolescents were surveyed, and additional data is available from the parents of the adolescents.