Methodological Developments in the Prevention of Adolescent Drug Use

描述（由申请人提供）：青少年药物使用问题是研究人员、政策制定者和公众在健康、教育和社会后果方面非常关注的问题。由于大多数关于药物使用及其相关因素的数据都是在自然环境中收集的，因此关于药物使用和滥用的因果途径的结论受到限制。这项赠款的培训部分的目标是提高。青年派在进一步了解发展和预防青少年吸毒的统计技术方面的技能，以及青年派在与青少年吸毒有关的问题上的知识库，重点是种族和性别差异。该研究项目的目标是应用现代和新的方法来提高对青少年药物使用的规范性发展轨迹的理解，以及这些轨迹在一系列性别和种族群体中的因果机制。该研究的第一个总体目标是利用创新的轨迹和混合建模方法分析nida资助的全国父母和青少年调查的数据，确定预测和发展规范青少年物质使用的一般和亚人群特定模型。考虑到这个大型数据集中不同种族和性别群体的规范轨迹，我们将确定青少年药物使用的既定预测因素的种族和性别特异性。第二个总体目标是测试干预对高风险青少年药物使用的中介因果效应的假设，使用nimh资助的快速通道项目的数据，这是一个旨在减少青少年行为问题的长期干预计划和现场实验。我们将首先测试第一个总体目标发现的可复制性，然后-使用培训计划中开发的技术-评估快速通道干预与青少年药物使用变化之间的潜在因果途径和中介关系。NSPY和快速通道数据集为研究实验和非实验背景下物质使用的发展提供了独特的机会。我们将利用统计模型的最新和新进展，其中PI将接受培训，以促进我们对种族，性别和其他结构在药物使用预防中的复杂作用的理解。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The problem of substance use among adolescents is of great concern to researchers, policy makers, and the public in terms of health, education, and social consequences. Because most data regarding substance use and its correlates have been collected in natural settings, conclusions about the causal pathways to substance use and abuse have been constrained. The goal of the training portion of this grant is to enhance. both the Pi's skills in the statistical techniques for furthering knowledge of the development and prevention of youth drug use and the Pi's knowledge base in issues relating to youth substance use with a focus on ethnic and gender differences. The goal of the research program is to apply contemporary and new methods to improve understanding about the normative developmental trajectories of substance use during adolescence and the causal mechanisms in those trajectories across a range of gender and ethnic groups. The first general aim of the research is to identify general and subpopulation-specific models of the prediction and development of normative adolescent substance use, using innovative trajectory and mixture modeling methods to analyze data from the NIDA-funded National Survey of Parents and Youth-. Given the normative trajectories in this large dataset for different ethnic and gender groups, we will then identify the ethnic- and gender-specificity of established predictors of adolescent substance use. The second general aim is to test hypotheses of mediated causal effects of an intervention on adolescent substance use in high-risk youth, using data from the NIMH-funded Fast Track project, a long-term intervention program and field experiment intended to reduce youth conduct problems. We will first test the replicability of the findings from the first general aim, then - using techniques developed in the training program - evaluate potential causal pathways and mediating relations linking the Fast Track intervention to changes in adolescent substance use. The NSPY and Fast Track datasets represent unique opportunities to study the development of substance use in both experimental and non-experimental contexts. We will use recent and novel advances in statistical modeling, in which the PI will be trained, to advance our understanding of the complex role of ethnicity, gender, and other constructs in substance use prevention.