Substance use and school victimization among California youth

Substance use and violence have been shown to co-occur among adolescents. However, the extant literature tends to focus on perpetrators of violence compared to victims. This study identifies patterns of substance use and school victimization and how they co-occur. The current study uses the California Healthy Kids Survey to identify latent classes/clusters of lifetime and frequency of recent (past month) alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana use and latent classes of school victimization (N=436,584). Demographic characteristics (age, gender, race/ethnicity) were included as predictors of latent class membership.

Analyses revealed four latent classes of substance use which included non-users (64%), alcohol experimenters (some recent alcohol use; 22.1%), mild poly-substance users (lifetime use of all substances with few days of recent use; 7.9%), and frequent poly-substance users (used all substances several times in the past month; 6%). There were also four classes of school victimization which included low victimization (46.6%), moderate victimization (20%), verbal victimization (21.6%), high victimization (with physical threats; 11.8%). Those in the high victimization class were twice as likely to be frequent poly-substance users and mild poly-substance use was most salient for those in the verbal victimization class.

Few studies have explored latent patterns of substance use and violence victimization concurrently. Second, the use of latent class analysis provides greater detail regarding substance use behaviors and types of victimization experienced by California adolescents. Understanding how victimization is associated with increases in substance use will provide schools with opportunities to screen for concurrent behavioral health problems among youth.