Original articleDevelopmental Trajectories of Substance Use From Early Adolescence to Young Adulthood: Gender and Racial/Ethnic Differences
Section snippets
Sample
Data for this study are from a nationally representative sample of participants in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) [28]. The initial in-school survey of Add Health (wave I; 1994–1995) included a random sample of ∼90,000 7th–12th graders. Wave I also included in-depth, at-home interviews with a subsample of 20,745 students. In-home interviews were conducted on ∼15,000 students 1 year later (1996, wave II). Wave III (2001–2002) and wave IV (2007–2008) in-home
Unconditional means model and unconditional growth model
Results from the hierarchical models for each substance use variable are shown in Table 2. Based on the intraclass correlations from the unconditional means models (model 1), 28% (alcohol use) to 49% (smoking) of the variance of substance use existed between individuals, whereas the remaining variance (51%–72%) was due to within-individual factors, including age.
Model 2 had a significantly better fit than model 1 for all measures of substance use. Fixed effects for the linear and quadratic
Discussion
The current study examined gender and racial/ethnic differences in developmental trajectories of alcohol use, heavy drinking, smoking, and marijuana use from early adolescence to young adulthood. All four forms of substance use increased from early adolescence, reached the highest level around mid-20s, and declined thereafter. Although trends from the current study parallel patterns found in previous longitudinal research, our study is based on a nationally representative sample and is the
Acknowledgment
This research uses data from Add Health, a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is extended to Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle
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