ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Little research has examined the spillover effects of tobacco communication campaigns, such as how anti-smoking ads affect vaping. AIMS AND METHODS: Participants were a national sample of 623 U.S. adolescents (ages 13-17 years) from a probability-based panel. In a between-subjects experiment, we randomly assigned adolescents to view one of four videos online: (1) a smoking prevention video ad from the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) The Real Cost campaign, (2) a neutral control video about smoking, (3) a vaping prevention video ad from The Real Cost campaign, or (4) a neutral control video about vaping. We present effect sizes as Cohen's d, standardized mean differences, with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). RESULTS: Exposure to The Real Cost vaping prevention ads led to more negative attitudes toward vaping compared with control (dâ =â 0.30, 95% CI: 0.07, 0.53), while exposure to The Real Cost smoking prevention ads did not affect smoking-related outcomes compared with control (p-valuesâ >â .05). Turning to spillover effects, exposure to The Real Cost smoking prevention ads led to less susceptibility to vaping (dâ =â -0.34, 95% CI: -0.56, -0.12), more negative attitudes toward vaping (dâ =â 0.43, 95% CI: 0.20, 0.65) and higher perceived likelihood of harm from vaping (dâ =â 0.26, 95% CI: 0.04, 0.48), compared with control. Exposure to The Real Cost vaping prevention ads did not affect smoking-related outcomes compared with control (p-valuesâ >â .05). CONCLUSIONS: This experiment found evidence of beneficial spillover effects of smoking prevention ads on vaping outcomes and found no detrimental effects of vaping prevention ads on smoking outcomes. IMPLICATIONS: Little research has examined the spillover effects of tobacco communication campaigns, such as how anti-smoking ads affect vaping. Using a national sample of 623 U.S. adolescents, we found beneficial evidence of spillover effects of smoking prevention ads on vaping outcomes, which is promising since it suggests that smoking prevention campaigns may have the additional benefit of reducing both smoking and vaping among adolescents. Additionally, we found that vaping prevention campaigns did not elicit unintended consequences on smoking-related outcomes, an important finding given concerns that vaping prevention campaigns could drive youth to increase or switch to using combustible cigarettes instead of vaping.
Subject(s)
Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems , Tobacco Products , Vaping , Adolescent , Humans , Advertising , Smoking/epidemiology , Nicotiana , Vaping/prevention & controlABSTRACT
PURPOSE: Tobacco prevention media campaigns are an important tool to address youth tobacco use. We developed a theory-based perceived message effectiveness (PME) Scale to use when vetting messages for campaigns. METHODS: Participants were a national sample of N=623 US adolescents (ages 13-17 years) recruited from a national probability-based panel. In an online experiment, we randomised adolescents to view tobacco prevention ads. All participants viewed an ad on smoking or vaping from the US Food and Drug Administration's The Real Cost campaign and a control video, in a random order. After ad exposure, we assessed PME using nine candidate items and constructs for convergent and criterion validity analyses. We used confirmatory factor analysis and examined information curves to select the scale items. RESULTS: A brief PME scale with three items (α=0.95) worked equally well for demographically diverse adolescents with different patterns of tobacco use. The Real Cost ads generated higher PME scores than the control videos for both vaping and smoking (convergent validity; p<0.05). Higher PME scores were associated with greater attention, fear, cognitive elaboration and anticipated social interactions (convergent validity; r=0.31-0.66), as well as more negative attitudes toward and lower susceptibility to vaping and smoking (criterion validity; r=-0.14 to -0.37). A single-item PME measure performed similarly to the three-item version. CONCLUSIONS: The University of North Carolina PME Scale for Youth is a reliable and valid measure of the potential effectiveness of vaping and smoking prevention ads. Employing PME scales during message development and selection may help youth tobacco prevention campaigns deploy more effective ads.
Subject(s)
Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems , Vaping , Humans , Adolescent , Advertising , Smoking/psychology , Tobacco Smoking , Tobacco Use , Vaping/prevention & control , Vaping/psychologyABSTRACT
The average U.S. woman wants to have two children; to do so, she will spend about three years pregnant, postpartum, or trying to become pregnant, and three decades trying to avoid pregnancy. However, few studies have examined individual patterns of contraceptive use over time. These trajectories are important to understand given the high rate of unintended pregnancy and how little we know about the complex relationship between contraceptive use, pregnancy intention, and patterns of reproductive behavior. We use data from the 2015-2017 National Survey of Family Growth to examine reproductive behavior and pregnancies across three years of calendar data. We identify seven behavior typologies, their prevalence, how women transition between them, and how pregnancies affect transitions. At any given time, half of women are reliably using contraception. A small proportion belong to a high pregnancy risk profile of transient contraceptive users, but some transition to using condoms or other methods consistently. An unintended pregnancy may initiate a transition into stable contraceptive use for some women, although that is primarily condom use. These findings have important implications for the ways contraception fits into women's lives and how that behavior interacts with relationships, sex, and life stage trajectories.
Subject(s)
Contraception Behavior , Pregnancy, Unplanned , Pregnancy , Child , Humans , Female , Contraception , Contraceptive Agents , CondomsABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are associated with increased risk of sustaining a traumatic brain injury (TBI). Alcohol use may play an important role in this relationship. This study examines whether binge drinking mediates the relationship between four ACEs and TBIs sustained in adulthood. METHODS: Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 cohort, we conducted longitudinal mediation analyses (n=6317). Interviews occurred annually from 1979 to 1994 and biennially until 2016. We evaluated the direct and indirect effects of individual ACEs (ie, experiencing physical violence, low parental warmth, familial alcoholism and familial mental illness; reported retrospectively) and a cumulative ACEs score on mean level of binge drinking (calculated across waves) and having a TBI in adulthood. To establish temporality, we included binge drinking that was measured at age 18 or older and before any reported TBI. RESULTS: Cumulative ACEs, familial alcoholism and physical abuse exposure were significantly associated with having a TBI through binge drinking, although this only explained a small part of the association between ACEs and TBI. Other ACEs were not significantly associated with binge drinking or TBI. CONCLUSION: The results indicate that while ACEs and adult TBI risk were significantly associated, lifetime binge drinking explains only a small part of the association. Future research could examine alternative social, biological and behavioural mechanisms along the pathway between ACEs and TBI. Determining this mechanism will allow public health practitioners to design and implement effective TBI prevention programmes for those at higher risk of injury due to ACE exposure.
Subject(s)
Adverse Childhood Experiences , Alcoholism , Binge Drinking , Brain Injuries, Traumatic , Adult , Humans , Adolescent , Binge Drinking/epidemiology , Retrospective Studies , Longitudinal Studies , Brain Injuries, Traumatic/epidemiology , Brain Injuries, Traumatic/etiologyABSTRACT
Combining datasets in an integrative data analysis (IDA) requires researchers to make a number of decisions about how best to harmonize item responses across datasets. This entails two sets of steps: logical harmonization, which involves combining items which appear similar across datasets, and analytic harmonization, which involves using psychometric models to find and account for cross-study differences in measurement. Embedded in logical and analytic harmonization are many decisions, from deciding whether items can be combined prima facie to how best to find covariate effects on specific items. Researchers may not have specific hypotheses about these decisions, and each individual choice may seem arbitrary, but the cumulative effects of these decisions are unknown. In the current study, we conducted an IDA of the relationship between alcohol use and delinquency using three datasets (total N = 2245). For analytic harmonization, we used moderated nonlinear factor analysis (MNLFA) to generate factor scores for delinquency. We conducted both logical and analytic harmonization 72 times, each time making a different set of decisions. We assessed the cumulative influence of these decisions on MNLFA parameter estimates, factor scores, and estimates of the relationship between delinquency and alcohol use. There were differences across paths in MNLFA parameter estimates, but fewer differences in estimates of factor scores and regression parameters linking delinquency to alcohol use. These results suggest that factor scores may be relatively robust to subtly different decisions in data harmonization, and measurement model parameters are less so.
Subject(s)
Alcohol Drinking , Data Analysis , Humans , Psychometrics , Factor Analysis, StatisticalABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Nurse navigation can improve quality of cancer care and reduce racial disparities in care outcomes. Addressing persistent structurally-rooted disparities requires research on strategies that support patients by prompting structural changes to systems of care. We applied a novel conceptualization of social support to an analysis of racial equity-focused navigation and patient-reported outcomes. METHOD: We applied an antiracism lens to create a theory-informed definition of system-facing social support: intervening in a care system on a patient's behalf. Participants were adults with early-stage breast or lung cancer, who racially identified as Black or White, and received specialized nurse navigation (n = 155). We coded navigators' clinical notes (n = 3,251) to identify instances of system-facing support. We then estimated models to examine system-facing support in relation to race, perceived racism in health care settings, and mental health. RESULTS: Twelve percent of navigators' clinical notes documented system-facing support. Black participants received more system-facing support than White participants, on average (b = 0.78, 95% confidence interval [CI]: [0.25, 1.31]). The interaction of race*system-facing support was significant in a model predicting perceived racism in health care settings at the end of the study controlling for baseline scores (b = 0.05, 95% CI [0.01, 0.09]). Trends in simple slopes indicated that among Black participants, more system-facing support was associated with slightly more perceived racism; no association among White participants. DISCUSSION: The term system-facing support highlights navigators' role in advocating for patients within the care system. More research is needed to validate the construct system-facing support and examine its utility in interventions to advance health care equity.
ABSTRACT
The goal of this manuscript is to advance HIV risk behavior prevention efforts for South African adolescent girls by identifying distinct trajectory patterns across multiple behavioral domains for adolescent and young adults. We draw from a sample of N = 1070 adolescent girls from South Africa who were between the ages of 13-15 at baseline. Participants were followed across 6 waves of data collection between 2011 and 2019. We focus on predicting trajectories between ages 15 and 21. All participants were HIV negative and had not experienced sexual debut at baseline. We examine group-based multi-variable trajectories across several known HIV risk behaviors: earlier age of sexual debut, engaging in unprotected sex, engaging in transactional sex, earlier age at first pregnancy, and exposure to physical IPV. We characterized three prototypical joint trajectories: abstainers (54%), early unprotected sex (36%), and high-risk sexually active (11%). We then predicted membership based on the following baseline risk and protective factors: household expenditures, bonding to school, parental monitoring, number of close friends, and community engagement. We found that school bonding and parental monitoring were the strongest predictor of sexual risk, and that, among those in both the early unprotected sex and high-risk groups, risky behaviors like unprotected and transactional sex most frequently occurred early in adolescence. These findings suggest that interventions should target girls early in adolescence, and that interventions focused at improving school bonding and promoting parental involvement may be most effective at preventing risky sexual behavior.
Subject(s)
Adolescent Behavior , HIV Infections , Adolescent , Adult , Female , HIV Infections/epidemiology , HIV Infections/prevention & control , Humans , Pregnancy , Risk-Taking , Sexual Behavior , South Africa/epidemiology , Unsafe Sex , Young AdultABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Perceived message effectiveness (PME) is a common metric to understand receptivity to tobacco prevention messages, yet most measures have been developed with adults. We examined adolescents' interpretation of language within candidate items for a new youth-targeted PME measure using cognitive interviewing. We sought to understand the meaning adolescents assigned to our candidate PME items to improve item wording. AIMS AND METHODS: Participants were 20 adolescents, ages 13-17 years from the United States. Cognitive interviews used a structured guide to elicit feedback on comprehension, answer retrieval, and language regarding a set of Reasoned Action Approach-based survey items that assessed the PME of smoking and vaping prevention ads. We employed thematic analysis to synthesize findings from the interviews. RESULTS: Interviews identified three main issues related to survey items: ambiguity of language, word choice (risk and other terminology), and survey item phrasing. Adolescents preferred direct, definitive language over more ambiguous phrasing which they saw as less serious (eg, "will" instead of "could"). For risk terminology, they preferred terms such as "harmful" and "dangerous" over "risky," which was viewed as easy to discount. The term "negative effects" was interpreted as encompassing a broader set of tobacco harms than "health effects." Adolescents said that the term "vape" was preferable to "e-cigarette," and identified ways to simplify item wording for greater clarity. CONCLUSIONS: Tobacco risk terms that appear similar differ in meaning to adolescents, and more direct and unambiguous language is preferred. Our findings informed changes to the PME scale items to improve clarity and reduce measurement error. IMPLICATIONS: This study adds to the literature on how adolescents interpret tobacco prevention language. Adolescents may interpret terminology differently than adults, which could lead to ambiguity in meaning and thus measurement error. Through cognitive interviewing, we identified and improved the language in a youth-focused PME measure for tobacco and vaping prevention.
Subject(s)
Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems , Vaping , Adult , Adolescent , Humans , United States , Vaping/psychology , Language , Smoking/psychology , Nicotiana , CognitionABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES: Latinos are at a high risk of developing type 2 diabetes (T2D). Prediabetes is a major risk factor for T2D; however, progression to T2D can be slowed with engagement in healthy behaviors. Stress can hinder engagement with health behaviors. Qualitative methods were used to understand how Latinos with prediabetes attempted to modify their diet and physical activity behaviors to slow T2D progression and how stress affected their engagement in these behaviors. DESIGN: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 Latinos with prediabetes in North Carolina. Participants were asked questions about types of stress they experienced and how stress affected their health. We generated codes on stress and stress responses and used content analysis to organize codes between and within participants. RESULTS: Behaviors changed after prediabetes diagnosis. Few participants reported changing their physical activity, however, all participants attempted to change their eating patterns by changing food types consumed and reducing portion sizes. The stress participants experienced impacted their ability to self-regulate their diet. They reported overeating or appetite suppression during stressful periods. Stress also affected cognitive responses by compromising healthy decision-making and instigating negative emotional reactions. Overall, stress complicated participants' ability to properly engage in recommended behaviors by negatively impacting participants' behavioral self-regulation and cognitive processes. CONCLUSIONS: Stress affects behavioral and cognitive progresses that adversely alters primarily dietary behaviors. Tailored plans acknowledging the impact of stress and providing coping and supportive help for dealing with stress may enhance engagement in healthy behaviors for Latinos with prediabetes.
Subject(s)
Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 , Prediabetic State , Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2/prevention & control , Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2/psychology , Diet , Exercise , Hispanic or Latino , HumansABSTRACT
Brief interventions to reduce frequent alcohol use among persons with HIV (PWH) are evidence-based, but resource-constrained settings must contend with competition for health resources. We evaluated the cost-effectiveness of two intervention arms compared to the standard of care (SOC) in a three-arm randomized control trial targeting frequent alcohol use in PWH through increasing the percent days abstinent from alcohol and viral suppression. We estimated incremental cost per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) gained from a modified societal perspective and a 1-year time horizon using a Markov model of health outcomes. The two-session brief intervention (BI), relative to the six-session combined intervention (CoI), was more effective and less costly; the estimated incremental cost-effectiveness of the BI relative to the SOC, was $525 per QALY gained. The BI may be cost-effective for the HIV treatment setting; the health utility gained from viral suppression requires further exploration.
Subject(s)
Crisis Intervention , HIV Infections , Cost-Benefit Analysis , HIV Infections/epidemiology , HIV Infections/prevention & control , Humans , Quality-Adjusted Life Years , Vietnam/epidemiologyABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Despite cumulative socioeconomic disadvantage and risk factors, Black Americans have a lower prevalence of depression than whites. Given the emerging focus of depression as a public mental health crisis, culturally informed depression measures and scale development techniques are needed to better alleviate the mental health burden of socially marginalized populations. Yet, for Black men, race- and gender-related factors that position emotional vulnerability as a sign of weakness, may potentially mask the timely identification of mental health needs in this population. Thus, we address these gaps by employing a stakeholder-driven, community-engaged process for understanding Black men's depression experience. METHODS: We use concept mapping, a structured mixed methods approach, to determine how stakeholders of Black men's health conceptualize their depressive symptoms. Thirty-six stakeholders participated in a three-phase concept mapping study conducted in 2018. Three separate stakeholder groups were engaged for this study, including Black men, Black women, and primary care providers. RESULTS: Participants generated 68 characteristics of Black men's depression which were reflected within five conceptual clusters: (1) physical states; (2) emotional states; (3) diminished drive; (4) internal conflicts; (5) communication with others; and (6) social pressures. Using a content analysis approach, we found that items comprising the "social pressures" cluster were not reflected in any common depression scales. CONCLUSIONS: Findings from this study illustrate the similar and divergent pathways in which Black men express depressed mood. Furthermore, concept mapping results also yield a novel opportunity for culturally informed scale development in future research.
Subject(s)
Black or African American , Depression , Depression/diagnosis , Depression/epidemiology , Female , Humans , Male , Men , Men's Health , Mental HealthABSTRACT
To select promising health messages, formative research has often relied on perceived message effectiveness (PME) scales assessing either of two related constructs, message perceptions (persuasive potential) and effects perceptions (potential for behavioral impact). We sought to examine their incremental criterion validity within a comparative framework. Participants were 703 U.S. adult smokers (ages [Formula: see text] 21) who received anti-smoking or comparable control (littering) messages on their cigarette packs for 3 weeks. Structural equation models examined both PME constructs as simultaneous correlates of outcomes from the UNC Tobacco Warnings Model. Message perceptions demonstrated incremental criterion validity with attention, an early behavioral antecedent ([Formula: see text] = 0.82, p < .001). Effects perceptions demonstrated incremental criterion validity with later behavioral antecedents (range [Formula: see text] = 0.74-0.87, all p < .01) and quitting behaviors ([Formula: see text] = 0.36-0.66, all p < .001). Formative research on anti-smoking messages may benefit from focusing on effects perceptions to characterize potential for behavior change.
Subject(s)
Smokers , Tobacco Products , Adult , Humans , Infant , Perception , Persuasive Communication , Tobacco UseABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Physical activity can improve osteoarthritis-related symptoms; however, many people with osteoarthritis (PWOA) are insufficiently active. Social support for physical activity from an intimate partner can help PWOA increase activity, but managing multiple, chronic physical or mental health conditions (i.e., multimorbidity) may influence provision and receipt of that support. METHOD: Data from a 1-year longitudinal observational study was used to examine associations between multimorbidity and three dimensions of partner support for physical activity-companionship partner support (doing activity together), enacted partner support, and social support effectiveness-in 169 insufficiently active PWOA and their partners. RESULTS: Multivariable-adjusted multi-level models indicated baseline differences in support by multimorbidity status: when partners had multimorbidity, PWOA reported receiving less companionship support and less effective support from partners; when PWOA had multimorbidity, partners reported providing less enacted support and both partners and PWOA reported less effective partner support. Broad trends (p < .05) indicate initial increases and subsequent decreases in companionship and enacted partner support when PWOA had multimorbidity, and among partners with and without multimorbidity. When PWOA had multimorbidity, an initial increase in support effectiveness was followed by no significant change; a similar trend was seen among partners with and without multimorbidity. CONCLUSION: Multimorbidity may generally contribute to less partner support for physical activity or less effective support, although influences on support over time are less clear. Physical activity interventions for couples experiencing multimorbidity would likely benefit from attention to the impact of multiple chronic health conditions on physical activity and physical activity-related partner support.
Subject(s)
Multimorbidity , Osteoarthritis , Exercise , Humans , Longitudinal Studies , Osteoarthritis/epidemiology , Sexual Partners , Social SupportABSTRACT
In Malawi, 50% of adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) have had a first child by age 19 and 45% report their pregnancies as unintended or mistimed. Yet, uptake of contraception remains low. Understanding how interactions with social ties impact AGYW contraceptive use might explain low uptake beyond individual and environmental factors. Data are from Girl-Power, a study among sexually active AGYW, aged 15-24, in Malawi. We used logistic regression models to examine whether contraceptive communication and social norms (descriptive and injunctive) were associated with contraceptive use (non-barrier methods and condoms) and how associations differed across social ties (older women in the family, peers, and partners). The sample included 942 participants: 28% reported using non-barrier methods and 66% reported using condoms. Contraceptive communication with older women in the family (aOR: 1.48, 95% CI: 0.99, 2.20), peers (aOR: 3.12, 95% CI: 1.96, 4.96), and partners (aOR 5.15, 95% CI: 3.13, 8.48) was associated with non-barrier method use. Descriptive norms were associated with non-barrier methods among peers (aOR 2.57, 95% CI: 1.63, 4.96) but not among older women in the family (aOR: 1.22, 95% CI 0.80, 1.88). There were no associations among contraceptive communication, social norms, and condom use across older women in the family, peers, and partners. The findings highlight the need to consider the influence of social ties in the design of future family planning interventions and suggest that interventions that encourage interpersonal communication about contraception and target peer-based descriptive norms have the potential to impact uptake of non-barrier methods.
Subject(s)
Contraceptive Agents , Social Norms , Adolescent , Communication , Condoms , Contraception , Contraception Behavior , Female , Humans , Infant, Newborn , Malawi , Pregnancy , Young AdultABSTRACT
This study used population-representative data to examine associations of risk and protective factor patterns among Alaska Native/American Indian (AN/AI; N = 592) and non-Native (N = 1,018) children with maternal and child outcomes at age 3 years. Among AN/AI children, a high risk/moderate protection class was associated with child developmental risk and mothers being less likely to feel comfortable asking for help or knowing where to go for parenting information compared to a low socioeconomic status/high protection class. Among non-Native children, a moderate risk/high protection class was associated with child developmental risk and mothers being less likely to feel comfortable asking for help compared to a low risk/high protection class. Results provide insight on the intersection of risk and protective factors among Alaska families.
Subject(s)
Child Development , Child Health , Adult , Alaska , Child , Child, Preschool , Female , Humans , Longitudinal Studies , Male , Mothers/psychology , Protective Factors , Risk FactorsABSTRACT
The current study examined whether social status and social integration, two related but distinct indicators of an adolescent's standing within a peer network, mediate the association between risky symptoms (depressive symptoms and deviant behavior) and substance use across adolescence. The sample of 6,776 adolescents participated in up to seven waves of data collection spanning 6th to 12th grades. Scores indexing social status and integration were derived from a social network analysis of six schools and subsequent psychometric modeling. Results of latent growth models showed that social integration and status mediated the relation between risky symptoms and substance use and that risky symptoms mediated the relation between social standing and substance use during the high school transition. Before this transition, pathways involving deviant behavior led to high social integration and status and in turn to substance use. After this transition, both deviant behavior and depressive symptoms led to low social integration and status and in turn greater substance use. These findings suggest that the high school transition is a risky time for substance use related to the interplay of increases in depressive symptoms and deviant behavior on the one hand and decreases in social status and integration on the other.
Subject(s)
Adolescent Behavior , Substance-Related Disorders , Adolescent , Humans , Peer Group , Risk-Taking , Schools , Social NetworkingABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES: Our objective was to identify preconception and prenatal predictors of early experiences of co-occurring risk and protective factors to help target prevention efforts to the highest-need families prior to the birth of the child. METHODS: Data were from the Alaska Longitudinal Child Abuse and Neglect Linkage project and the 2012-2014 Alaska Child Understanding Behaviors Survey. We used latent class analysis and Vermunt's three-step approach to examine predictors of latent classes of risk and protective factors among Alaska children. RESULTS: Among children of Alaska Native/American Indian mothers, financial (OR 2.02, 95% CI 1.04, 3.90) and partner stress (OR 2.06, 95% CI 1.02, 4.10) prior to childbirth, maternal education < 12 years (OR 2.29, 95% CI 1.05, 4.96), and maternal substance use (OR 2.52, 95% CI 1.30, 4.89) were associated with a higher likelihood of membership in a high risk/moderate protection class as compared to a low socioeconomic status/high protection class. Among children of non-Native mothers, partner stress prior to childbirth (OR 3.92, 95% CI 1.08, 14.19), maternal education < 12 years (OR 2.69, 95% CI 1.24, 5.81), maternal substance use (OR 2.69, 95% CI 1.24, 5.81), younger maternal age (OR 0.87, 95% CI 0.80, 0.95), and a greater number of children (OR 1.62, 95% CI 1.09, 2.41) were associated with a higher likelihood of membership in a moderate risk/high protection class as compared to a low risk/moderate protection class. CONCLUSIONS: Results can inform eligibility criteria for prenatal home visiting programs and prenatal screening in Alaska to ensure prevention programming and referrals are directed to families most in need of additional support.
Subject(s)
/statistics & numerical data , Child Abuse/prevention & control , Indians, North American/statistics & numerical data , Mothers/psychology , Preconception Care , Prenatal Care , Alaska , Child, Preschool , Female , Humans , Infant, Newborn , Maternal Age , Protective Factors , Risk AssessmentABSTRACT
We aimed to characterize developmental patterns of involvement in alcohol use, delinquency, and interpersonal aggression in a normative sample of adolescents by applying multitrajectory group-based modeling. Using seven waves of data from a cohort sequential study spanning the 6th to 12th grades (n = 2,825; 50% girls), we identified four distinct trajectory groups: low risk (33%), declining peer aggressors (44%), peer and dating aggressors (13%), and multidomain high risk (10%). Across all comparisons, girls were more likely than boys to be members of the peer and dating aggressor group and less likely to be members of the multidomain high-risk group. Moreover, individual (self-control, negative emotionality), family (family violence, parental monitoring), and peer (substance use norms) distinguished class membership.
Subject(s)
Domestic Violence , Substance-Related Disorders , Adolescent , Aggression , Alcohol Drinking/epidemiology , Female , Humans , Male , Peer GroupABSTRACT
In the study of adolescent health, it is useful to derive indices of social dynamics from sociometric data, and to use these indices as predictors of health risk behaviors. In this manuscript, we introduce a flexible latent variable model as a novel way of obtaining estimates of social integration and social status from school-based sociometric data. Such scores provide the flexibility of a regression-based approach while accounting for measurement error in sociometric indicators. We demonstrate the utility of these factor scores in testing complex hypotheses through a combination of structural equation modeling and survival models, showing that deviance mediates the relationship between social status and smoking onset hazard at the transition to high school.
Subject(s)
Adolescent Behavior/psychology , Smoking/psychology , Sociometric Techniques , Adolescent , Female , Health Risk Behaviors , Humans , Male , Risk Assessment/methodsABSTRACT
Currently, little is known about patterns of co-occurring risk and protective factors among young children. Understanding variations in co-occurring risk and protective factors among children in Alaska is important as experiences of collective trauma may contribute to differences in the intersection of risk and protective factors between Alaska Native/American Indian (AN/AI) and non-Native children. Using data from the Alaska Longitudinal Child Abuse and Neglect Linkage (ALCANLink) project, a linkage of the 2009-2011 Alaska Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System survey and administrative data sources, and the 2012-2014 Childhood Understanding Behaviors Survey, we conducted latent class analysis to identify classes of AN/AI (N = 593) and non-Native (N = 1018) children in terms of seven risk factors (poverty, maternal depression, maternal binge drinking, parental incarceration, intimate partner violence exposure, other violence exposure, child maltreatment) and four protective factors (father figure involvement, reading by adults, family meals, peer interactions) experienced prior to age 3 years. We identified two classes among AN/AI children: (1) high risk-moderate protection (29.1%) and (2) low socioeconomic status-high protection (70.9%). We identified two classes among non-Native children: (1) moderate risk-high protection (32.9%) and (2) low risk-high protection (67.1%). A test of invariance revealed that risk and protective factor probabilities differed significantly for corresponding classes of AN/AI and non-Native children. Overall, results demonstrate heterogeneity within and between AN/AI and non-Native children in early experiences of risk and protection and suggest that interventions will be more effective if tailored to the experiences and developmental needs of specific groups of Alaska children.