Why now? Examining antecedents for substance use initiation among African American adolescents

Abstract Current adolescent substance use risk models have inadequately predicted use for African Americans, offering limited knowledge about differential predictability as a function of developmental period. Among a sample of 500 African American youth (ages 11–21), four risk indices (i.e., social risk, attitudinal risk, intrapersonal risk, and racial discrimination risk) were examined in the prediction of alcohol, marijuana, and cigarette initiation during early (ages 11–13), mid (ages 16–18), and late (ages 19–21) adolescence. Results showed that when developmental periods were combined, racial discrimination was the only index that predicted initiation for all three substances. However, when risk models were stratified based on developmental period, variation was found within and across substance types. Results highlight the importance of racial discrimination in understanding substance use initiation among African American youth and the need for tailored interventions based on developmental stage.

• Publication year

  2020

• Venue

  Development and Psychopathology

• Publication date

  2020-05-01

• Fields of study

  Sociology, Medicine, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1017/S0954579419000713PMID 31452473PMCID PMC7044022
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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