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

334544
Mental health problems, stress, and substance use among homeless youth


Monday, November 2, 2015 : 9:10 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.

Sarah Narendorf, PhD, Graduate College of Social Work, University of Houston, Houston, TX

Diane Santa Maria, DrPH, MSN, RN, Department of Nursing Systems, University of Texas Health Science Center School of Nursing, Houston, TX
Matthew Cross, MA, Health and Human Performance, University of Houston, Houston, TX
Audio (mp3) recording Recorded Presentation (mp4)
Background: Rates of substance use among homeless youth are 2-3 times higher than the general population.  Adverse childhood events and current circumstances contribute to high levels of stress and mental health problems.  Little is known about the associations between mental distress, stress and substance use in homeless youth. We examined this association hypothesizing that higher stress and mental health symptoms would be associated with greater substance use.  

Methods: We conducted a survey of 439 homeless youth ages 13-24 in Houston, Texas in Fall 2014. Participants were recruited from shelters, drop-in centers, magnet events, and street outreach. We measured stress with the Perceived Stress Scale-4 and mental distress with the Kessler-6. Lifetime and current substance use were measured with items from Monitoring the Future. We used multivariable logistic regression to assess the relationship between mental distress, stress, and substance use, controlling for age, race, and gender.

Results: Higher stress was associated with lifetime use of marijuana and other illegal drugs and with current use of marijuana, synthetic marijuana (Kush) and cigarettes (p<0.05).  Mental distress was not significantly associated with use of substances except the lifetime use of Kush.  African American and female youth were significantly less likely to use substances in most analyses.

Conclusions: Findings suggest that stress reduction is a promising target of intervention to reduce substance use in homeless youth, regardless of whether youth have mental health problems.  Efforts to develop interventions should consider tailoring materials by race and gender.

Learning Areas:

Program planning
Social and behavioral sciences

Learning Objectives:
Describe the associated between mental health problems and perceived stress and substance use among homeless youth.

Keyword(s): Homelessness, Stress

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have studied mental health problems and service use in vulnerable adolescents throughout my career. I oversaw the data collection, ran the analyses and wrote up the results of the current study which focuses on substance use, mental health, and stress in homeless youth.
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.

Back to: 3021.0: Homeless Youth: A Population at Risk for Substance Use (A collaborative session between ATOD and CoH)