Spatial Patterns of Social Isolation, Youthful Marijuana Use, and Sexual/HIV Risk

描述（由申请人提供）：拟议的研究有两个首要目标：（1）推进关于邻里接触的空间动态理论，以了解年轻人的健康风险行为;和（2）模拟青少年参与高风险大麻使用（早发和高频率使用）和共病性/艾滋病毒风险行为，采用最先进的GIS-城市空间和时间使用模式的衍生措施，以及最近开发的多层次和空间数据的分层贝叶斯模型。我们分析邻里接触的影响的核心是从理论上定义和经验上探索社会隔离的概念，这一概念在个人和邻里水平的时空活动模式中很明显，并探索这一概念对年轻人吸毒和共病HIV风险行为的影响。社会隔离代表了焦点个人或社区与其他社区之间联系的程度和特征。个人通过工作、上学、照顾孩子、保健、非正式社交和宗教活动等常规活动，与广泛的社区有潜在的联系。这些模式的非住宅社区暴露将不同的个人，并在总体上，在不同的社区的方式，可能是重要的理解变异和差异（按性别，种族，民族和移民身份）之间的青少年在发病和使用大麻的频率，以及在何种程度上，青年从事危险的性活动。为了解决这些问题，我们使用了来自洛杉矶家庭和邻里调查（洛杉矶）的数据。粉丝）沿着的还有青年及其家人居住的社区的人口普查数据，以及他们一天中的旅行。洛杉矶FANS包括洛杉矶县65个随机选择的人口普查区域内的不同青年样本、他们的家庭和社区的信息。分析的重点是12岁至17岁的所有人。我们的分析策略依赖于地理空间测量技术，地理可视化和分层贝叶斯模型，用于多层次和空间数据，以探索关键假设。这项研究的结果有可能扩大对背景在组织有问题的青少年大麻使用和共同病态的性/艾滋病毒风险行为中的作用的理解，其后果可能会在整个生命过程中产生分歧或截断。拟议的研究将有助于更好地了解青少年及其家人在日常生活中所经历的不同社区环境如何影响青少年中高风险的大麻使用和危险的性活动。这些活动关系到公共健康，因为它们使青年在其生命的现阶段和未来面临身心健康问题的风险。研究结果可能表明，针对青少年健康风险的干预措施应在多大程度上针对与其他地区接触最隔离的社区，以及这些干预措施是否对某些青年比其他青年更有影响力（女孩与男孩，有色人种青年与白人，移民与非移民）。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed study has two overarching aims: (1) to advance theory on the spatial dynamics of neighborhood exposure for understanding youthful health risk behavior; and (2) to model adolescent participation in high risk marijuana use (early onset and high frequency use) and co-morbid sexual/HIV risk behavior employing state- of-the-art GIS-derived measures of urban space and time use patterns, and recently developed hierarchical Bayesian models for multilevel and spatial data. Central to our analysis of the impact of neighborhood exposure is theoretically defining and empirically exploring the concept of social isolation as evident in space- time activity patterns at both the individual and neighborhood levels, and exploring the implications of this concept for youthful drug use and co-morbid HIV risk behavior. Social isolation represents the extent and character of connections between a focal individual or neighborhood and other communities. Individuals are potentially linked to a wide range of communities through regular activities such work, school, child care, health care, informal socializing, and religious activities. These patterns of non-residential community exposure will vary across individuals and, in the aggregate, across communities in ways that may be important for understanding variation and disparities (by gender, race-ethnicity, and immigrant status) among adolescents in the onset and frequency of using marijuana, and the extent to which youth engage in risky sexual activity. To address these questions, we use data from the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey (L.A. FANS) along with census data for the neighborhoods in which youth and their families reside as well as travel to through the course of their day. L.A. FANS includes information for a diverse sample of youth, their families, and neighborhoods within 65 randomly selected census tracts in Los Angeles County. The analyses focus on all persons in the sample between the ages of 12 and 17. Our analytic strategy relies on geospatial measurement techniques, geovisualization, and hierarchical Bayesian models for multilevel and spatial data to explore key hypotheses. Findings from the study have the potential to broaden understanding of the role of context in organizing problematic youthful marijuana use and co-morbid sexual/HIV risk behavior, the consequences of which may ramify throughout, or truncate, the life course. The proposed research will contribute to a better understanding of how the different neighborhood environments that youth and their families move through during the course of their daily lives affect high risk marijuana use and risky sexual activity among adolescents. These activities are of concern for public health because they put youth at risk for physical and mental health problems in the current stage of their lives and into the future. Findings from the research may suggest the extent to which interventions to address adolescent health risks should target neighborhoods that are the most isolated from contact with other areas, and whether such interventions would be more influential for some youth than others (girls versus boys, youth of color versus whites, immigrants versus non-immigrants).