Citation
Maldonado-Molina, Mildred M. & Lanza, Stephanie T. (2010). A framework to examine gateway relations in drug use: An application of latent transition analysis. Journal of Drug Issues. vol. 40 (4) pp. 901-924 , PMCID: PMC3400537Abstract
A progressive and hierarchical sequence of drug use suggests that a sequence of stages of drug use can describe the order by which adolescents try drugs. We propose an operational definition to test gateway relations by providing a framework with the aim of describing a set of conditions to guide the evaluation of whether a drug serves as a gateway for another drug. We used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to demonstrate how using latent transition analysis we can estimate the odds of using a drug at a later time conditional on having used a gateway drug at an earlier time. We provide three empirical demonstrations for testing the gateway relations using a national and longitudinal data of adolescents (e.g., gateway relation between cigarettes and marijuana, alcohol and marijuana, and alcohol and cigarettes).URL
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177%2F002204261004000407Reference Type
Journal ArticleJournal Title
Journal of Drug IssuesAuthor(s)
Maldonado-Molina, Mildred M.Lanza, Stephanie T.