Substance use by African-American youth: Spanning two complementary datasets

这项拟议的研究在未被充分研究的非裔美国青少年中调查了抑郁症和行为问题与使用大麻、香烟和酒精之间的横断面和纵向关系。该项目的数据来自两项独特的研究：监测未来（MTF），一项关于物质使用和相关结构的大型全国性研究，以及school - be，一项关于城市非洲裔美国青少年中物质使用和心理健康的实验室研究。该项目通过探索物质使用与心理健康的纵向关系及其潜在的共同潜在机制，最大限度地发挥调查和实验室研究各自的优势，有两个目标。首先，本研究旨在检验两个非裔美国青少年样本中抑郁、行为问题和大麻、香烟和酒精使用之间的横断面关系：school - be和从MTF中选择的人口统计学上可比较的样本。其次，本研究旨在进一步表征心理健康症状与物质使用的关系，利用每个数据集的优势，通过对抑郁和行为问题的MTF进行纵向分析，预测未来大麻、香烟和酒精的使用，并通过在school - be中测试一个中介模型，其中行为问题和抑郁介导父母支持与大麻、香烟和酒精使用之间的关系。目前的项目将为非洲裔美国青少年药物使用的发展轨迹提供重要的知识。这一人群在现有文献中代表性不足，对非裔美国人样本的研究结果不能被认为适用于他们。迄今为止的研究表明，非裔美国人更有可能经历与物质有关的问题，如物质使用障碍和负面健康后果，尽管青少年时期的使用率较低。然而，心理健康的作用，特别是抑郁症和行为问题，在非裔美国人的大麻，香烟和酒精的使用及其发展到有问题的使用尚未得到详细阐述。拟议的研究结果将与特定文化的预防和干预计划直接相关，通过针对精神健康症状来减少非裔美国青年的药物使用。该项目的研究培训部分集中在对首席研究员Julie Maslowsky的三个培训目标上：提高资助和手稿写作技能，扩展经验技能，并进一步发展她的多学科专业网络。培训将在两年多的时间里通过严格的课程和研讨会来完成，这些课程和研讨会教授朱莉希望学习的技能，个人和实验室会议，她在那里接受关于她的研究进展和专业发展的指导，与来自多个学科的同事合作，并在该领域的主要多学科会议上发表演讲。接受这一培训将为她作为一名独立的发展科学研究人员的职业生涯做好准备。

The proposed research examines cross-sectional and longitudinal relationships of depression and conduct problems to use of marijuana, cigarettes, and alcohol in an understudied population, African-American adolescents. Data from this project are drawn from two unique studies: Monitoring the Future (MTF), a large, national study of substance use and related constructs and SCHOO-BE, a laboratory study of substance use and mental health in a large sample of urban African American adolescents. This project maximizes the respective advantages of survey and laboratory research by exploring longitudinal relationships of substance use and mental health and their potential common underlying mechanisms, with two aims. First, this research aims to examine the cross-sectional relationships between depression, conduct problems, and marijuana, cigarette, and alcohol use in two African American adolescent samples: SCHOO-BE and a demographically comparable sample selected from MTF. Second, this research aims to further characterize the relationships of mental health symptoms to substance use, capitalizing on strengths of each dataset by conducting longitudinal analysis in MTF of depression and conduct problems predicting future marijuana, cigarette, and alcohol use, and by testing a mediation model in SCHOO-BE in which conduct problems and depression mediate the relationship between parental support and marijuana, cigarette, and alcohol use. The current project will contribute important knowledge on the developmental trajectories of substance use in African-American adolescents. This population is underrepresented in the extant literature, and results of studies of non-African-American samples cannot be assumed to generalize to them. Research to date has revealed that African-Americans are more likely to experience substance-related problems such as substance use disorder and negative health consequences despite lower rates of use during adolescence. However, the role of mental health, specifically depression and conduct problems, in African-Americans' marijuana, cigarette, and alcohol use and their progression to problematic use has not yet been elaborated. The findings yielded by the proposed research will have immediate relevance for culturally specific prevention and intervention programs to reduce substance use by African-American youth by targeting mental health symptoms. The research training component of the project is centered on three training goals for the Principal Investigator, Julie Maslowsky: to increase grant and manuscript writing skills, expand empirical skills, and further develop her multidisciplinary professional network. The training will be accomplished over two years via a rigorous program of courses and workshops that teach the skills Julie wishes to learn, individual and lab meetings where she receives guidance on her research progress and her professional development, collaboration with colleagues from multiple disciplines, and presentations at the major multidisciplinary conferences in the field. Receipt of this training will prepare her well for her intended career as an independent developmental science researcher.