The proposed prospective longitudinal study has been designed to advance our understanding of how drug use develops in context in which crime, alcoholism, and other forms of deviance are likely to co-occur. We will locate and reinterview a cohort of first graders, first studied in 1966-67 and followed through adolescence. These African American adults all lived in an inner city Chicago neighborhood in first grade. Over the last two decades, they have dispersed geographically; they have also traversed a variety of paths to adulthood. The proposed study will: 1) identify protective characteristics present in child, the adolescent or the environment that lead to successful adult status, despite the presence of other conditions that often predict adverse outcomes such as heavy adolescent drug use, school dropout, or growing up in a poor neighborhood; 2) provide information about which childhood and adolescent conditions signal long-term drug and crime problems and which indicate only short-term problems. These results will have direct implications for prevention and intervention programs. The study will involve reinterviewing men and women who were part of an earlier longitudinal study linking childhood role performance, psychological well-being, and problem behaviors to adolescent role performance, psychological well-being, and problem behaviors including drug and alcohol use and crime. We plan to study them as adults, to learn about drug and alcohol use and crime as well as their current role performance in their families and in the work place, psychological well- being and social isolation. The focus will be on understanding continuities and discontinuities in drug use, alcoholism, and criminal behavior and psychological well-being performance. Specifically, we will examine: 1) the long-term consequences of substance use during adolescence; 2) the patterns of behavior in childhood and adolescence that indicate short-term problems with drugs and crime and those which signal difficulties that continue into adulthood; for example, we will examine the long-term effect of aggressiveness in first grade, early as well as adolescent school achievement, and family background and environment; 3) substance use as part of several patterns of life-style; 4) the extent of social context of families, schools, and neighborhoods interact with early behavior to alleviate or perpetuate problems.
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