Profiles of Contextual Risk at Birth and Adolescent Substance Use

• Published in: Journal of Child and Family Studies
• Main Authors: Parra, GR, Smith, GL, Mason, WA, Savolainen, J, Chmelka, MB, Miettunen, J, Jarvelin, M-R, Moilanen, I, Veijola, J
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: SPRINGER 2017
• Subjects: Social Sciences; Science & Technology; Life Sciences & Biomedicine; Family Studies; Psychology; Developmental; Psychiatry; Contextual risk; Adolescent substance use; Birth cohort; Person-centered; Latent class analysis; PERSON-CENTERED APPROACH; FINNISH PERINATAL HEALTH; SOCIOECONOMIC DIFFERENCES; MULTIPLE RISKS; UNITED-STATES; CHILDHOOD; PSYCHOPATHOLOGY; FAMILY; EVENTS; 1117 Public Health And Health Services; 1701 Psychology; 2004 Linguistics; Northern Finland
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/60401; http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000426297700005&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202; https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0935-x

This study examined whether there are subgroups of families with distinct profiles of prenatal/birth contextual risk, and whether subgroup membership was differentially related to adolescent substance use. Data from the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1986 were used. A five-class model provided the most meaningful solution. Large Family Size (7.72%) and Low Risk (69.69%) groups had the lowest levels of alcohol, cigarette, and illegal drug use. Similar high levels for each of the three substance-related outcomes were found for Parent Substance Misuse (11.20%), Maternal School Dropout (4.66%), and Socioeconomic Disadvantage (6.72%) groups. Maternal smoking and drinking while pregnant and paternal heavy alcohol use were found to be key prenatal risk factors that tended to cluster together and co-occur with other prenatal risk factors differently for different subgroups of youth.