USING TEMPORAL VARIATION IN RISK BEHAVIOR TO UNDERSTAND TRENDS IN ADOLESCENT ALCOHOL MISUSE

项目摘要 减少多种青少年危险行为的流行，如酗酒、使用大多数非法药物、 近几十年来，毒品、过早性行为、犯罪和暴力事件时有发生。目前尚不清楚这些 是单独的趋势，或者它们是否反映了参与风险行为的倾向的更广泛的减少。这是一 这是一个基本问题，因为特定行为趋势的潜在原因与那些 这也许可以解释与风险行为倾向相关的单一趋势。不同的趋势意味着不同的行为- 具体原因（如酒精政策、性健康教育）。但是，如果这些同时发生的趋势反映了一个 多个结果的风险降低，解释可能涉及个人水平的因素，如 外化行为的倾向使用来自3个国家监测调查的25年数据， 该项目将是第一个解决这个问题，因为它将是第一个流行病学研究，以检查多个 趋势是一种行为综合症，而不是一种单独的现象。这将涉及方法论 创新，因为它需要流行病学趋势研究中通常不使用的多变量方法。 根据问题行为理论，拟议项目的首要目的是确定是否 风险行为的减少反映了潜在特征或“风险行为综合征”的减少。该项目 重要的是，描述这种现象是理解其原因的第一步。我们还将 研究与以下趋势相关的理论上相关的心理社会风险和保护因素的变化： 风险行为这将转移我们的研究问题的重点从“什么？”“为什么”更广泛的 了解与这些趋势相关的个人风险和保护因素可以帮助改进现有的 关于因果因素的假设，并可能导致新的假设。 我们将利用项目反应理论建模和测量随时间变化的不变性测试来检查 风险行为趋势反映潜在风险行为综合征趋势的程度。我们将 与危险行为的4个典型领域相关的结构因素：酒精和药物使用，犯罪，早期 物质启蒙和性行为我们将把它们建模为高阶因子的函数， 将风险和保护因素纳入模型。 这将是有史以来第一次研究多种风险行为的人口趋势及其之间的关系。 我们假设，这些趋势反映了风险行为综合征的责任变化， 这一趋势在很大程度上解释了酗酒现象的下降。这些目标的成功实现将导致 更全面地了解多个学科感兴趣的长期趋势，并确定 风险和保护因素。通过开发一个综合的变革模式，我们将建立一个坚实的科学 因果关系的正式研究的基础。

Project Summary Reductions in the prevalence of multiple adolescent risk behaviors such as binge drinking, use of most illicit drugs, early sexual debut, crime, and violence have occurred in recent decades. It is unknown whether these are separate trends or if they reflect a broader reduction in the propensity to engage in risk behavior. This is an essential question because the potential set of causes for behavior-specific trends is very different from those that might explain a unitary trend related to risk-behavior propensity. Separate trends imply separate, behavior- specific causes (e.g. alcohol policies, sexual health education). But if these concurrent trends reflect a reduction in risk for multiple outcomes, the explanation likely involves individual-level factors such as predisposition to externalizing behaviors. Using 25 years of data from 3 national monitoring surveys, this project will be the first to address this question as it will be the first epidemiological study to examine multiple trends as a behavioral syndrome rather than as separate phenomena. This will involve methodological innovation as it requires multivariate methods that are not typically used in epidemiological trend studies. Informed by Problem Behavior Theory, the overarching purpose of the proposed project is to identify whether reductions in risk behaviors reflect reductions in an underlying trait or “Risk Behavior Syndrome.” The project is significant because characterizing the phenomena is a first step toward understanding its causes. We will also examine changes in theoretically relevant psychosocial risk and protective factors that correlate with trends in risk behaviors. This will shift the focus of our research question from “What?” to “Why?” A broader understanding of individual-level risk and protective factors associated these trends can help refine existing hypotheses about causal factors and may lead to new hypotheses. We will utilize Item Response Theory modeling and tests of measurement invariance over time to examine the degree to which trends in risk behaviors reflect trends in an underlying Risk Behavior Syndrome. We will construct factors related to 4 canonical domains of risk behavior: alcohol and drug use, delinquency, early substance initiation, and sexual behaviors. We will model those as a function of a higher-order factor and incorporate risk and protective factors into the model. This will be the first-ever study of population trends in multiple risk behaviors and the relations among them. We hypothesize that the trends reflect changes in liability for Risk Behavior Syndrome and that this broader trend accounts for much of the decline in binge drinking. Successful accomplishment of these aims will lead to a more comprehensive understanding of secular trends of interest to multiple disciplines and identify salient risk and protective factors. By developing an integrated model of change, we will establish a firm scientific groundwork for formal studies of causality.