Social Demographics, Marginalization, and Adolescent Substance Use

社会人口统计、边缘化和青少年药物使用

• 批准号: 8298161
• 负责人: Aprile Dawn Benner
• 金额: $ 7.72万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-08-01 至 2014-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8298161
• 关键词: Academy; Achievement; Address; Adolescence; Adolescent; Affect; Alcohol abuse; Alcohol consumption; Alcohol or Other Drugs use; American; Americas; Area; Belief; Child; Complex; Data; Desegregation; Development; Distress; Drug abuse; Drug usage; Ecology; Education; Environment; Equation; Ethnic Origin; Etiology; Family; Feeling; Gender; Genetic Predisposition to Disease; Genetic Risk; Goals; Health; Health behavior; Hostility; Individual; Inequality; Intervention; Interview; Life Cycle Stages; Link; Loneliness; Longitudinal Studies; Low income; Marijuana Smoking; Mediating; Methods; Minority; Minority Groups; Mission; Modeling; Pain; Peer Group; Personal Satisfaction; Plant Roots; Policies; Prejudice; Prevention; Preventive Intervention; Process; Public Health; Race; Relative (related person); Reporting; Research; Risk; Sampling; Schools; Social Justice; Socialization; Societies; Stress; Students; Substance abuse problem; Techniques; Testing; Validation; Variant; Youth; adolescent substance use; coping; demographics; drinking; economic impact; health disparity; improved; member; peer; public education; racial and ethnic; response; social; socioeconomics; theories

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Substance use during adolescence is an oft-studied phenomenon, but this research generally fails to take an ecological perspective on etiology. Schools are a primary context of socialization during adolescence, and understanding how school composition matters for substance use is critical for prevention efforts. Promoting school diversity has been a major legislative goal, but the unintended public health consequences of such policies are often ignored-diversity has empirically established academic benefits, yet it is not without its challenges, particularly regarding the socioemotional well-being of children and adolescents whose lack of demographic "fit" with their schools puts them at risk for social marginalization. Whether this demographic misfit (i.e., having few same-race/ethnic or same-socioeconomic peers in school) is risky for substance use has yet to be explored, although both theory and empirical evidence suggests that it might. The general goal of this project, therefore, is to examine whether, why, and when students who do not have a critical mass of same-race/ethnicity peers or peers of similar SES in school are more likely to drink and use drugs. Here, I use data from Add Health to explore three specific areas of inquiry. First, I will identify adolescents who are at the numeric margins of their schools both racially/ethnically and socioeconomically and compare their substance use to that of adolescents who have greater representation of same-demographic peers. Such research will highlight the potential unintended health risks of major academically-focused school reforms. Second, I will test two mechanisms by which marginalization might influence substance use: a) whether marginalization initiates feelings of misfit that, in turn, contribute to adolescents' substance use and b) whether the link between marginalization and substance use is stronger for students in schools and peer groups in which substance use is more normative. Third, the project will explore the extent to which the marginalization threshold (defined as 15% or more same-demographic peers) effectively captures the critical mass necessary for protection against substance use and lack of fit. Although the National Academy of Education recommends the 15% same- demographic peer threshold to protect against the harmful effects of marginalization, their report acknowledges that this estimate needs empirical validation. As a departure from previous, small-scale studies that explore the critical mass question, this project uses a large, nationally representative sample to empirically identify the critical mass needed to protect against social marginalization. Early substance use and abuse exert pernicious effects across the life course, and this project has the potential to expand our understanding of the implications of school composition for such risky health behaviors. By elucidating the mechanisms by which marginalization affects substance use, the project will highlight critical points of intervention, and by identifying the contextual antecedents of early substance use, the project will inform educational policy efforts that seek to better promote the full academic benefits of diversity in America's public schools.

描述（由申请人提供）：青春期物质使用是一种经常研究的现象，但这项研究通常未能从生态学角度来看待病因。学校是青春期社会化的主要场所，了解学校构成对药物滥用的影响对于预防工作至关重要。促进学校多样性一直是一个主要的立法目标，但此类政策带来的意想不到的公共健康后果往往被忽视——多样性已在经验上证实了学术上的好处，但它并非没有挑战，特别是在儿童和青少年的社会情感福祉方面，他们的人口结构与学校缺乏“契合度”，使他们面临社会边缘化的风险。这种人口结构的不适应（即学校里几乎没有同种族/民族或相同社会经济的同龄人）是否会对药物滥用造成风险还有待探讨，尽管理论和经验证据都表明可能存在这种风险。因此，该项目的总体目标是研究学校中没有足够数量的同种族/族裔同龄人或具有类似社会经济地位的同龄人的学生是否、为什么以及何时更有可能饮酒和吸毒。在这里，我使用 Add Health 的数据来探索三个具体的调查领域。首先，我将确定在种族/族裔和社会经济方面处于学校数量边缘的青少年，并将他们的物质使用情况与在相同人口统计同龄人中具有更大代表性的青少年进行比较。此类研究将凸显以学术为重点的重大学校改革潜在的意外健康风险。其次，我将测试边缘化可能影响物质使用的两种机制：a）边缘化是否会引发不适应感，进而导致青少年的物质使用；b）对于物质使用更加规范的学校和同侪群体中的学生来说，边缘化和物质使用之间的联系是否更强。第三，该项目将探讨边缘化阈值（定义为 15% 或更多相同人口的同龄人）在多大程度上有效地捕捉到防止药物滥用和缺乏适应性所必需的临界质量。尽管美国国家教育学院建议采用 15% 的同龄人阈值来防止边缘化的有害影响，但他们的报告承认这一估计需要实证验证。与之前探讨临界质量问题的小规模研究不同，该项目使用具有全国代表性的大型样本来凭经验确定防止社会边缘化所需的临界质量。早期药物使用和滥用会在整个生命过程中产生有害影响，该项目有可能扩大我们对学校构成对此类危险健康行为的影响的理解。通过阐明边缘化影响物质使用的机制，该项目将突出干预的关键点，并通过确定早期物质使用的背景因素，该项目将为旨在更好地促进美国公立学校多样性的全面学术利益的教育政策工作提供信息。