Measurement Timing in Growth Mixture Modeling of Alcohol Trajectories

描述（由申请人提供）： 摘要：青春期和青年期饮酒仍然是一个重要的研究领域，这一点得到了国家酗酒和酗酒问题研究所未成年饮酒研究倡议和国家酗酒和酗酒问题咨询理事会工作队的报告（2002年）的充分认可。酒精使用及其负面后果是一个重大的公共卫生问题，因为它们对个人和社会产生的生物，社会和环境影响。重要的是要更好地了解个人随着时间的推移所表现出的酒精使用的可变模式（例如，在这个关键的发育时期，酒精的使用量一直很低，酒精的使用量迅速增加。增长混合模型（GMM）是一种统计技术，用于识别随着时间的推移表现出不同饮酒模式的个体的潜在亚组。尽管广泛使用的GMM，数量有限的研究已经检查了研究设计因素可能会影响酒精使用轨迹用于确定潜在的亚组GMM。拟议的研究特别关注测量时间的影响（即，评估的数量和间隔）。在GMM的背景下，关于如何间隔评估的决策特别具有挑战性，因为假设的潜在亚组可能会根据设计特征而不是实际变化随着时间的推移表现出不同的酒精使用趋势。 本项目旨在研究GMM背景下测量时间如何影响个体酒精使用轨迹的形状。具体目标是：（1）进行蒙特卡罗模拟研究，评估评估的数量和间隔如何影响用于识别GMM中潜在酒精使用亚组的酒精使用轨迹;（二）使用1997年全国青年纵向调查的酒精数据，提供GMM的应用，该数据表明评估的数量和间隔在多大程度上影响了用于识别潜在饮酒者的酒精使用轨迹。亚组;和（3）将研究结果传达给定量和应用研究人员，并为设计纵向GMM研究提出具体考虑。拟议研究的主要意义是帮助应用研究人员设计GMM研究，充分衡量个人随着时间的推移表现出的酒精使用模式。然后，研究人员可以进行更细粒度的检查病因预测和远端结果与潜在的类轨迹。这些和随后的研究结果也可能有助于识别个人的预防或干预计划的基础上的信息预测特定的酒精使用轨迹。 公共卫生相关性： 项目叙述：拟议中的研究旨在增进我们对如何最好地衡量个人在青春期和成年初期的酒精使用模式的了解，这是酒精相关行为发展的关键时期。正如卫生局局长的报告（美国卫生与公众服务部，2007年）所指出的，重要的是要了解个人的酒精使用模式随着时间的推移，这种理解的影响有针对性的预防和干预计划，以个人谁表现出特定的酒精使用模式。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Abstract: Alcohol use during adolescence and young adulthood remains a critical area for research, which is well-recognized by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism's (NIAAA) Underage Drinking Research Initiative and the report from the Task Force of the National Advisory Council on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (2002). Alcohol use and its negative consequences are a significant public health concern given the biological, social, and environmental effects they exert on individuals and society. It is important to better understand the variable patterns of alcohol use that individuals exhibit over time (e.g., consistently low alcohol use, rapidly increasing alcohol use) during this key developmental period. Growth mixture modeling (GMM) is a statistical technique that is used to identify latent subgroups of individuals who exhibit distinct patterns of alcohol use over time. Despite the widespread use of GMM, a limited number of studies have examined how study design factors may affect alcohol use trajectories used to identify latent subgroups in GMM. The proposed research focuses specifically on the effect of measurement timing (i.e., number and spacing of assessments) in longitudinal studies. Decision-making about how to space assessments is particularly challenging in the context of GMM, because the hypothesized latent subgroups may exhibit different trends in alcohol use over time based on design features rather than actual changes. This project proposes to investigate how measurement timing affects the shape of individuals' alcohol use trajectories in the context of GMM. The specific aims are to: (1) conduct a Monte Carlo simulation study that evaluates how the number and spacing of assessments affects the alcohol use trajectories used to identify latent alcohol use subgroups in GMM; (2) provide an application of GMM using alcohol data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 that demonstrates the extent to which the number and spacing of assessments affects the alcohol use trajectories used to identify the latent subgroups; and (3) communicate the findings to both quantitative and applied researchers and suggest specific considerations for designing longitudinal GMM studies. The main implication of the proposed research is to aid applied researchers in designing GMM studies that adequately measure the patterns of alcohol use that individuals exhibit over time. Researchers may then conduct more fine-grained examinations of etiological predictors of and distal outcomes associated with the latent class trajectories. These and subsequent findings may also facilitate identification of individuals for prevention or intervention programs based on information about the predictors of particular alcohol use trajectories. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Project Narrative: The proposed research seeks to enhance our knowledge of how to best measure individuals' patterns of alcohol use during adolescence and young adulthood, which is a key period for the development of alcohol- related behaviors. As indicated in the Surgeon General's report (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2007), it is important to understand individuals' patterns of alcohol use over time given the implications such understanding has for tailoring prevention and intervention programs to individuals who exhibit particular patterns of alcohol use.