2015 APHA Annual Meeting & Expo

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Recorded Annual Meeting Presentations (RAMP) are now available for purchase.
Only $90 for presenters, $140 for registered attendees and $200 for non-attendees.

Online Program

317199
A Latent Class Analysis of Adolescent Recovery Capital


Monday, November 2, 2015

Emily A Hennessy, MPhil, Department of Human and Organizational Development, Vanderbilt University, Peabody College, Nashville, TN
Sonya K. Sterba, PhD, Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
Background: In 2010, adolescents comprised 7% of treatment admissions, which raises questions about the resources necessary for initiating and maintaining recovery from substance dependence/abuse among adolescents. Recovery capital (RC) is one way to conceptualize the total amount of resources an individual has to initiate or sustain recovery. RC has four primary dimensions: material/financial, human/individual, social, and community/cultural.

Methods: Conditional latent class analysis using the 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health explored whether there were observable classes of recovery capital among adolescents (age 12-17) identified as needing treatment (N = 1171) and whether four predictors could differentiate class membership. Predictors included were gender (male = 49%), race (white = 57%), age (M = 15.75, SD = 1.27), and ever-received treatment (yes = 16%). The fit of two to five class models were compared using several selection indices.

Results: A five-class model fit the data best: classes ranged from low RC (4.12%, N = 48) to high RC (25.82%, N = 302). Adolescents in the lowest RC class positively endorsed very few variables within each recovery capital domain, indicating a lack of financial, social, human, and community capital, whereas adolescents in the highest RC class endorsed almost all variables. Adolescents in the lowest RC class were significantly more likely to be a minority than all other classes (OR= 24.80 to 69.41).

Conclusions: LCA illustrated a profile of characteristics of adolescents with low RC who may be particularly vulnerable to relapse. Implications for adolescent screening and treatment resources will be discussed.

Learning Areas:

Social and behavioral sciences

Learning Objectives:
Describe recovery capital and its four primary components. Discuss how the amount of different recovery capital components may be important to the adolescent recovery process. Identify characteristics of different classes of recovery capital among adolescent respondents from the 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

Keyword(s): Adolescents, Drug Abuse Treatment

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am a PhD student in community research and action specializing in adolescent health with a minor in quantitative methods. My research focuses on adolescent substance use prevention, treatment, and recovery, and, as a co-investigator on several projects, has resulted in multiple refereed journal articles and conference presentations that address these issues.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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