Drug Use in Latin American Youth: Longitudinal Study from Infancy to Adolescence

描述（由申请人提供）：在美国西班牙裔青年中，药物使用的患病率不成比例地高，拉丁美洲的药物使用正在增加。然而，西班牙裔人群的药物使用情况还远远没有得到充分研究。相对较少的西班牙裔研究主要包括横断面样本或非常短的纵向设计（例如，2-3年）。他们往往依赖于在校青年的样本，不包括可能影响以后药物使用的生物侮辱信息。拟议的项目解决了许多这些限制。它建立在1200多名智利青少年及其家庭的非凡样本之上，这些青少年从婴儿期开始就被长期跟踪。该样本最初是与美国国立卫生研究院支持的一项关于预防婴儿缺铁性贫血的行为和发育影响的研究一起纳入的。在婴儿期、5岁和10岁时获得了生物、个体、家族和环境因素的综合信息。在拟议的项目开始时，这些儿童将年满11-15岁，在智利，这一年龄段开始使用物质，特别是酒精和烟草的人数特别多。我们建议在青少年早期到晚期确定物质使用、滥用和依赖的发展途径。在拟议的为期五年的研究中，我们计划对所有青少年母亲进行两次全面评估，大约间隔两年。在生命历程方法的指导下，我们提出调查3个具体目标：目标1)纵向表征从婴儿期到青春期增加或减少青少年吸毒的个人、家庭和环境因素；目标2)识别危险期及危险期后物质使用的认知、行为和社会后果；目的3)确定婴儿期多巴胺系统可能的损伤（缺铁）对青春期药物使用和滥用的影响。该研究的发现有助于我们从两个重要方面理解药物使用和滥用的病因和预防：1)进一步确定西班牙裔青年吸毒的途径；2)在15年的时间里，研究从生物到环境的多领域背景下物质使用的发展途径。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The prevalence of substance use is disproportionately high among Hispanic youth in the U.S., and substance use is increasing in Latin America. Yet substance use in Hispanic populations is vastly understudied. The relatively few studies with Hispanics consist mainly of cross-sectional samples or very short longitudinal designs (e.g., 2-3 years). They tend to rely on samples of school-attending youth and do not include information on biological insults that might impact later substance use. The proposed project addresses many of these limitations. It builds on an extraordinary sample of over 1,200 young Chilean adolescents and their families, who have been followed longitudinally since infancy. The sample was originally enrolled in conjunction with a NIH-supported study of the behavioral and developmental effects of preventing iron deficiency anemia in infancy. Comprehensive information on biological, individual, familial, and environmental factors was obtained in infancy and at 5 and 10 years. The children will be 11-15 years at the start of the proposed project, an age period when initiation of substance use, especially alcohol and tobacco, is exceptionally high in Chile. We propose to identify developmental pathways of substance use, abuse, and dependence in early to late adolescence. In the proposed five-year study we plan to conduct two comprehensive assessments of all adolescent-mother dyads, approximately two years apart. Guided by a life-course approach, we propose to investigate 3 Specific Aims: Aim 1) To longitudinally characterize individual, familial, and environmental factors from infancy through adolescence that increase or decrease drug involvement in adolescence; Aim 2) To identify cognitive, behavioral, and social consequences of substance use through an at-risk period and beyond; and Aim 3) To determine the effects of a probable insult to the dopamine system in infancy (iron deficiency) on substance use and abuse in adolescence. Findings from the proposed study can contribute to our understanding of the etiology and prevention of substance use and abuse in two important ways: 1) To further the identification of pathways of drug involvement among Hispanic youth; and 2) To study developmental pathways of substance use within a multiple domain context that ranges from the biological to the environmental over a 15-year period.