We propose to extend the Northwestern Juvenile Project to examine the dynamic relationships among patterns of drug use and disorder, risk and protective factors for drug use and disorder, and adult social role performance as juvenile justice youth age from adolescence to emerging adulthood and young adulthood. This study responds to NIDA's new initiatives on drug abuse, health disparities, and disproportionate minority confinement of African Americans. At year-end 2004, nearly 100,000 juveniles and nearly 2.1 million adults were incarcerated. African Americans comprise 12% of the US population but 40% of incarcerated populations. We are studying a racially/ethnically diverse sample (n=1709;624 females, 1085 males) in Cook County (Chicago) Illinois, aged 10-18 years at recruitment (1995-1998). Youth are reinterviewed whether they are (re)incarcerated or back in the community. Our goal is to focus on gender differences, racial/ethnic disparities, and the effect of incarceration as we: (1) describe patterns of drug use and disorder --onset, persistence, desistence, andrecurrence - asjuvenile justice youth agefrom adolescence to emerging and young adulthood;(2) examine how risk and protective factors (e.g., comorbid mental disorders, adverse life events, availability of illicit drugs) predict, moderate, and mediate patterns of drug use and disorders;and (3) examine the dynamic relationships between patterns of drug use and disorder and adult social role performance (e.g., residential independence [including avoiding incarceration], employment, marriage, parenting, desistance from crime and violence). To analyze the longitudinal data, we will use summary statistics (e.g., prevalence rates, odds ratios), generalized linear mixed-effects models, survival analyses, and Muthen's recently developed extensions of growth mixture models. Extending the Northwestern Juvenile Project allows us to leverage the data already collected to examine the role of incarceration in the development of drug use and disorder, especially among African Americans;to identify risk and protective factors that are potentially malleable;to identify points of intervention at key developmental periods;and to extend theoretical models ?developed in general population adolescents -- to correctional populations.
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