Monitoring the Future: A Cohort-Sequential Panel Study of Drug Use, Ages 19-65 - Administrative Supplement #1 (8/10th Grade Panel)

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ABSTRACT The proposed project will supplement the existing Monitoring the Future (MTF) Panel study, which follows adolescents beginning in 12th grade, by conducting a pilot test of a new MTF Early Panel. The pilot MTF Early Panel will collect longitudinal data from students who are in 8th and 10th grades in 2023 annually for two years (again in 9th and 10th grades, or 11th and 12th grades, respectively, in 2024 and 2025). Our goal is to include 100 students each from 6 supplementary schools, for a total of 600 8th and 10th graders. For these students, we will need to collect contact information from 8th and 10th graders, and therefore cannot follow typical procedures of anonymity for collecting MTF Main 8th and 10th grade cross-sectional data. Results will inform our understanding of the feasibility of developing a parallel MTF Early Panel to follow students starting at modal ages 14 and/or 16 in the future. An MTF Early Panel will be the only national, longitudinal data available for researchers and policymakers about substance use initiation and patterns across adolescence. Specific aims of the supplement will be to: (1) Examine the feasibility of collecting contact information in schools and longitudinal data via web-based surveys from 8th and 10th graders, (2) Document how the obtained samples differ from MTF 8th and 10th grade samples obtained with anonymous and cross-sectional data collection procedures, and (3) Conduct preliminary analyses of predictors and longitudinal patterns of substance use and related attitudes from 8th to 12th grades. Strengths of the proposed work include building on an existing MTF data collection infrastructure and the ability to start longitudinal surveys (1) before students drop out of school—if they are going to—which generally happens in high school, and (2) before students typically initiate substance use. These strengths would complement the existing MTF Panel study, which in effect excludes young adults who have dropped out of high school due to sampling in 12th grade. This project will offer new insights about the development of substance use and attitudes in the current historical moment, including how cohorts of students who are coming of age during historic substance use declines (following the COVID-19 pandemic) will move through high school and beyond, including implications for mental health and substance use trajectories for the rest of their lives. MTF would be the only national study with longitudinal data starting in adolescence (at age 14) before the large increases in substance use initiation that take place in high school. This information would provide the opportunity to identify individual, community, and family risk and protective factors for teen substance use initiation.