USING TEMPORAL VARIATION IN RISK BEHAVIOR TO UNDERSTAND TRENDS IN ADOLESCENT ALCOHOL MISUSE

项目摘要 减少青少年多种危险行为的流行率，如酗酒、使用大多数非法药物 近几十年来，毒品、性早熟、犯罪和暴力事件时有发生。目前还不清楚这些是否 是不同的趋势，或者它们是否反映了从事危险行为的倾向的更广泛的减少。这是一个 基本问题，因为特定行为趋势的潜在原因集合与那些 这可能解释了与风险行为倾向相关的单一趋势。分开的趋势意味着分开的行为- 具体原因(如酒精政策、性健康教育)。但如果这些同时出现的趋势反映出 多个结果的风险降低，解释可能涉及个人层面的因素，如 倾向于外化行为。使用来自3个国家监测调查的25年数据，这 项目将是第一个解决这个问题的项目，因为它将是第一个检查多个 趋势是一种行为综合症，而不是单独的现象。这将涉及方法论 创新，因为它需要在流行病学趋势研究中通常不使用的多变量方法。 在问题行为理论的启发下，提议的项目的首要目的是确定 风险行为的减少反映了一种潜在特征或“风险行为综合症”的减少。该项目是 意义重大，因为表征这些现象是了解其原因的第一步。我们还将 检查理论上相关的心理社会风险和保护因素的变化，这些因素与 危险行为。这将把我们研究的焦点从“什么？”变成了“为什么？”一个更广泛的 了解与这些趋势相关的个人层面的风险和保护因素有助于改进现有的 关于因果因素的假设，并可能导致新的假设。 我们将利用项目反应理论建模和测量随时间变化的不变性测试来检验 风险行为趋势反映潜在风险行为综合征趋势的程度。我们会 构建与危险行为的4个典范领域相关的因素：酗酒和吸毒、青少年犯罪、早期 物质启动和性行为。我们将把它们建模为高阶因子的函数 将风险和保护因素纳入模型。 这将是第一次研究人群在多种危险行为中的趋势以及它们之间的关系。 我们假设，这些趋势反映了风险行为综合征责任的变化，而且这一更广泛的 趋势在很大程度上解释了酗酒的下降。这些目标的成功实现将导致 更全面地了解多个学科感兴趣的长期趋势，并确定突出的 风险和保护因素。通过开发一个综合的变革模式，我们将建立一个坚定的科学 为正式研究因果关系奠定基础。

Project Summary Reductions in the prevalence of multiple adolescent risk behaviors such as binge drinking, use of most illicit drugs, early sexual debut, crime, and violence have occurred in recent decades. It is unknown whether these are separate trends or if they reflect a broader reduction in the propensity to engage in risk behavior. This is an essential question because the potential set of causes for behavior-specific trends is very different from those that might explain a unitary trend related to risk-behavior propensity. Separate trends imply separate, behavior- specific causes (e.g. alcohol policies, sexual health education). But if these concurrent trends reflect a reduction in risk for multiple outcomes, the explanation likely involves individual-level factors such as predisposition to externalizing behaviors. Using 25 years of data from 3 national monitoring surveys, this project will be the first to address this question as it will be the first epidemiological study to examine multiple trends as a behavioral syndrome rather than as separate phenomena. This will involve methodological innovation as it requires multivariate methods that are not typically used in epidemiological trend studies. Informed by Problem Behavior Theory, the overarching purpose of the proposed project is to identify whether reductions in risk behaviors reflect reductions in an underlying trait or “Risk Behavior Syndrome.” The project is significant because characterizing the phenomena is a first step toward understanding its causes. We will also examine changes in theoretically relevant psychosocial risk and protective factors that correlate with trends in risk behaviors. This will shift the focus of our research question from “What?” to “Why?” A broader understanding of individual-level risk and protective factors associated these trends can help refine existing hypotheses about causal factors and may lead to new hypotheses. We will utilize Item Response Theory modeling and tests of measurement invariance over time to examine the degree to which trends in risk behaviors reflect trends in an underlying Risk Behavior Syndrome. We will construct factors related to 4 canonical domains of risk behavior: alcohol and drug use, delinquency, early substance initiation, and sexual behaviors. We will model those as a function of a higher-order factor and incorporate risk and protective factors into the model. This will be the first-ever study of population trends in multiple risk behaviors and the relations among them. We hypothesize that the trends reflect changes in liability for Risk Behavior Syndrome and that this broader trend accounts for much of the decline in binge drinking. Successful accomplishment of these aims will lead to a more comprehensive understanding of secular trends of interest to multiple disciplines and identify salient risk and protective factors. By developing an integrated model of change, we will establish a firm scientific groundwork for formal studies of causality.