Disparities of Drug Use in Emerging Adults

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal seeks five years of funding to examine family and contextual factors contributing to drug use disparites among African American (AA) and European American (EA) emerging adults (age 20/21-22/23). This proposal builds on a previously funded study (NIDA, DA12645-04), Examining the Efficacy of Parents Who Care. Thus, this study capitalizes on data already collected in the 8th, 9th, and 10th grades. The longitudinal data provide multi-method, multi-rater information on a sample of 163 AA and 168 EA youth during the critical middle school to high school transition. In combination with self-reported data from parents and teens, coded videotaped observations will provide a valuable asset for discovering micro-processes of teen-parent interaction and are a rare data source on African American adolescents and their parents. Guided by the Social Development Model, this proposal extends our research into the emerging adulthood period, a period critical to understanding the origins of race based disparities in substance use patterns and consequences. Additionally, the existing sample is well suited to exploring race differences in regulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary- adrenal (HPA) axis, which may place African Americans at higher risk for substance abuse and its consequences. Specifically we propose to examine the similarities and differences between AA and EA youth in patterns of substance use and the level of exposure to and impact of specific family and broader contextual influences on substance use patterns from middle school into emerging adulthood. Second, because we have seen signifcant effects of the intervention on reducing high risk behaviors (drug, alcohol, and sex initiation, violence) and on protective behaviors (observed positive parenting) we will continue to examine race differences in the long-term effects of the self-administered intervention and the parent and teen skills group intervention compared to a no-treatment control condition on drug use and misuse, criminal behavior, and risky sexual behavior through late adolescence and emerging adulthood. Finally, we will examine risk factors for HPA axis dysregulation measured by basal and diurnal cortisol and it's relationship to current and later drug use. This study fills important gaps in the research on health disparities in patterns of substance use, and will contribute to our ability to address and eliminate race based disparities in the consequences of drug use.This study fills important gaps in public health research on health disparities in patterns of substance use and will contribute to our ability to address and eliminate race-based disparities in the consequences of drug use.