Race Differences in Correlates of Substance Use between White, Black, and Black-White Adolescents

Citation

Clark, Trenette T.; Butler-Bente, Emily; & McGovern, Patricia (2015). Race Differences in Correlates of Substance Use between White, Black, and Black-White Adolescents. American Public Health Association 143rd Annual Meeting and Exposition. Chicago, IL.

Abstract

Introduction: The prevalence of substance use among biracial Black-White youth is high relative to most other youth. However, little research has examined the correlates of substance use among biracial Black-White youth. The purpose of this study was to report the prevalence and intensity of lifetime, recent, and regular substance use among Black, White, and biracial Black-White American adolescents, and to examine correlates of substance use among these youth.

Methods: Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent and Adult Health (Add Health), we examined the prevalence of lifetime, recent, and regular cigarette, alcohol, and marijuana use among self-identified Black, White, and biracial Black-White youth. Controlling for sociodemographic variables, we also examined the relationship between religiosity, parental warmth, parental control, parental smoking, home availability, peer substance use, school attachment, school discrimination, and neighborhood connectedness, with substance use among Black, White, and Black-White youth. The analytic sample included 14,750 wave 1 participants. Data were analyzed with SAS 9.0 using the SUDAAN application. Predictive models were built using weighted Poisson regression and weighted logistic regression. Alpha was adjusted to control for multiple comparisons (Type 1 error).

Results: As hypothesized, results generally indicate that the substance use rates of Black-White youth are intermediate to White and Black youth, with White youth reporting higher rates and Black youth reporting lower rates than Black-White youth. Results also show significant differences in the correlates of substance use among Black, White, and Black-White adolescents.

Conclusions: Results indicate that the prevalence and correlates of substance use vary by race and gender. Support for the biracial intermediate phenomenon was partially substantiated. Theses findings highlight the need for substance abuse prevention to target adolescents’ cultural backgrounds and explore group differences in mechanisms of substance use trajectories.

URL

https://apha.confex.com/apha/143am/webprogram/Paper324295.html

Reference Type

Conference proceeding

Book Title

American Public Health Association 143rd Annual Meeting and Exposition

Author(s)

Clark, Trenette T.
Butler-Bente, Emily
McGovern, Patricia

Year Published

2015

City of Publication

Chicago, IL

Reference ID

5731