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American Public Health Association
133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition
December 10-14, 2005
Philadelphia, PA
APHA 2005
 
4170.0: Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - Board 5

Abstract #110934

Impact of psychosocial factors on marijuana exposure and initiation: A longitudinal investigation

Kerry M. Green, PhD, Warren A. Rhodes, PhD, Jacquelyn Buckley, PhD, and Sandra Barrueco, PhD. Department of Mental Health, Prevention Research Center, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 624 North Broadway, Room 810, Baltimore, MD 21205, 410-955-0412, kgreen@jhsph.edu

The substance use progression process has many stages, including opportunity, initiation, experimentation, escalation, abuse, and dependence. The extent to which one uses and the nature of that use is influenced by numerous factors at each stage. Within the context of a longitudinal, epidemiologically defined sample, the current investigation explores risk and protective factors that influence the first opportunity to use marijuana and the progression process. We combine two lines of research that generally have been explored separately: correlational research on early-stage drug opportunity and longitudinal research on risk and protective factors for drug use. Although each line of research has contributed much towards understanding factors important to substance use progression, we know of no studies which have explored the influences on marijuana opportunity and initiation in a prospective study. This study will therefore use multivariate logistic regression to explore individual factors (gender, race, depression, perceived control, conduct problems, achievement, alcohol use, tobacco use), family factors (poverty, discipline, monitoring, rejection), peer factors (deviant behavior, attitudes towards drugs, drug use), and neighborhood factors (disadvantage, drug presence) that influence first opportunity to use compared to initiation of marijuana use among a cohort of mostly African American youth from Baltimore, Maryland (N=580) followed from first grade through 11th grade. Results suggest that the factors operate differently for boys and girls. We also found that key differences between predictors of an individual's opportunity to use marijuana and an individual's use of marijuana. Implications for prevention research and practice will be presented.

Learning Objectives:

Keywords: Drug Use, Risk Factors

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Issues in Substance Abuse Poster Session

The 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition (December 10-14, 2005) of APHA