Do Changes in the Economy Affect Teenage Drug Use?

经济变化会影响青少年吸毒吗？

基本信息

批准号：
6684876
负责人：
JEREMY ARKES
金额：
$ 8.36万
依托单位：
RAND CORPORATION
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
财政年份：
2003
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2003-09-29 至 2004-11-30
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6684876
关键词：
adolescence (12-20) behavioral /social science research tag clinical research employment /unemployment geographic difference human data socioeconomics substance abuse epidemiology

项目摘要

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): While social and psychological factors are typically considered to be the most significant determinants of teenage drug use, other factors may also play an important role. In this proposed research, we will examine a previously unexplored factor of illicit drug use that has the potential to explain a significant portion of the trends in teenage drug use: the strength of the economy. During the 1990s, the economy steadily improved and there was a large increase in teenage drug use. It is uncertain, however, whether these two trends are related. One can imagine that a stronger economy would offer greater job opportunities for teenagers, which would provide income to buy drugs. At the same time, with more job opportunities and higher wages that a strong economy would provide, the opportunity cost of using drugs would be higher because using drugs could take away from time working and could affect work performance. We propose to examine how teenage drug use changes with variation in state unemployment rates. This research may help us better understand what drives teenage drug use and why teenage drug use increased so much during the 1990s. In addition, with this research, evaluators could parse out the effects of the economy to obtain more accurate estimates of how effective anti-drug campaigns have been. To ensure that unobserved heterogeneity would not affect the estimates, we will estimate bivariate models in which the unobserved propensity to use drugs is allowed to be correlated with the unobserved propensity to work additional hours. The framework developed here could be modified to explore other causes and consequences of drug use.

描述（由申请人提供）：虽然通常认为社会和心理因素是青少年吸毒的最重要决定因素，但其他因素也可能起重要作用。在这项拟议的研究中，我们将研究以前未开发的非法药物使用因素，该因素有可能解释青少年药物使用的很大一部分趋势：经济的强度。在1990年代，经济稳步改善，青少年吸毒的增加大幅增长。但是，这两个趋势是否相关是不确定的。可以想象，更强大的经济将为青少年提供更大的工作机会，这将为购买毒品提供收入。同时，凭借更多的就业机会和强大的经济提供的工资，使用药物的机会成本将会更高，因为使用药物可能会从时间上工作并可能影响工作绩效。我们建议研究如何随着州失业率变化而变化的青少年使用变化。这项研究可能有助于我们更好地了解驱动青少年吸毒的原因以及为什么在1990年代使用青少年吸毒的原因如此之大。此外，通过这项研究，评估人员可以解析经济的影响，以更准确地估计反毒品运动的有效性。为了确保未观察到的异质性不会影响估计值，我们将估计双变量模型，其中允许使用未观察到的药物的倾向与未观察到的倾向相关联，以工作额外的小时。可以修改此处开发的框架，以探索吸毒的其他原因和后果。