This proposal seeks funding for three years to conduct a medical anthropological follow-up study of fifty-six mother-child dyads who were subjects in a previous study that compared the effects of marihuana use during pregnancy on the health and development of the neonate in a cannabis-using population in rural Jamaica. In the earlier study, cannabis smoking mothers were matched with non- cannabis smoking mothers according to age, sex, and parity. Their offspring were subsequently evaluated using the Brazelton Neonatal Assessment Scale. The proposed research will compare the children of cannabis-smoking women with the children of non-cannabis smoking women at age five with regard to their development and behavioral style. To this end, the McCarthy Scales of Childrens Abilities (MSCA) and the Behavioral Style Questionnaire (BSQ), respectively, will be used. Since the earlier study suggested the role of the caregiving environment in mitigating some of the potentially adverse effects of marihuana, the proposed study will compare the caregiving environments of the two groups at age five. The environments will be assessed by the use of the Caldwell HOME Scale and through direct observations by trained ethnographers who will conduct community-based and home-based field studies. The data will be analyzed by multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) using subscores on each of the tools (MSCA, BSQ, HOME) and considering marihuana use in dose related fashion. Profile analysis will be performed on groups. Cannonic correlations and step-wise multiple regression will provide data on the HOME as it relates to BSQ and MSCA. The Jamaican setting permits the study of the long-term effects of marihuana use on children of mothers who smoked during pregnancy, unconfounded by other illic substances or by heavy alcohol or tobacco consumption.
