This application requests thirty months of funding to support the further exploitation of a unique data set that has only recently been fully assembled. We argue that this data set offers exceptional opportunities to advance our understanding of potentially modifiable social factors that condition risk for drug, alcohol, mental health and criminal behaviors. The unusual scientific promise of the data and our capacity to effectively pursue this promise, as demonstrated by progress to date, suggests that a large number of additional important advances relevant to prevention science can be anticipated with confidence. While drug use and associated problems remain a central focus, analyses will also address cigarette use, alcohol dependence, psychological distress, psychiatric disorder, and criminal behavior. Proposed work will benefit from the availability of data that is wide ranging in scope, varied in data source and more comprehensive than previously available on a large and representative community sample of young adults. Data we have obtained, in combination with that gathered in a prior study by Vega and colleagues include: a) three waves of questionnaires completed annually beginning in 6/7 grade and ending in 8/9 grade; b) 30 minute telephone interviews with a parent at the 6/7 grade point and when most participants were between 19 and 21 years of age; c) detailed interviews on mental health and substance problems and on hypothesized risk/protective factors at ages 19-21 and 21-23; d) middle school and high school records (grades, attendence etc) on each participant and school level data for each relevant school; and e) characteristics of neighborhood of residence during adolescence as indicated by the 1990 census. We propose to: 1) evaluate the lifetime and recent prevalence of each of the target outcomes by the intersections of gender, race/ethnicity, SES and nativity; 2) to evaluate the similarities and differences in risk and protective factors (including family, school and neighborhood context factors) across the array of negative outcomes assessed and, within outcome, across gender, race/ethnicity, SES and nativity; 3) to evaluate the reliabilities of retrospectively assessed psychiatric and substance disorders and of retrospectively reported major lifetime events; 4) to contribute toward a better understanding of potentially modifiable factors that predict and may condition the presence of various risk factors (what puts individuals at risk for risks), and 5) to prepare the data set for public use. Our intention would be to share these findings through presentations to the scientific and general communities and through the publication of peer reviewed scientific publications.
