An adolescent's school context includes some of the most salient risk and protective factors for health-compromising behaviors. Research suggests that students who are disengaged from school are more likely to use alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs; however, a paucity of work has been done to describe the relationship between school disengagement and substance use in a multivariate, longitudinal, and comprehensive model. The proposed research constitutes a request for a NIDA Mentored Research Scientist Development Award to provide training and research experience that will allow the PI to thoroughly examine the patterns and processes of school disengagement in an effort to formulate a conceptual model that describes the risk, protective, and resiliency factors of the school context. As part of the proposed research plan, the patterns of school disengagement from elementary school to high school will be examined using a growth mixture model, a strategy that identifies distinct groups of individuals possessing a similar trajectory of change over time. The relevance of these trajectories will be evaluated by assessing the antecedents (e.g. gender, ethnicity), consequences (e.g. likelihood of substance abuse), and time varying covariates (e.g. involvement with delinquent peers, parental monitoring) of membership in each distinct trajectory class. The proposed research will allow the PI to apply state-of-the-art statistical techniques to examine the relationship between school disengagement and substance use in two, large longitudinal datasets. In addition, the temporal ordering and reciprocal effects between drug use and the development of school problems within the context of other important factors related to the family and peers will be examined. The candidates goal is to canvass a new substantive research area, develop a comprehensive model that describes the mechanisms by which school disengagement over time affects substance use, be an apprentice to three superb scholars in the field of adolescent risk behavior and advanced longitudinal methodology, and prepare to operate as an independent researcher.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 16 publications
