Substance Use Protective Factors in a National Multi-Racial/Ethnic Sample of Adolescents

Background and Purpose: The research questions examined how the protective factors of parental monitoring, school attachment, religiosity, and peer disapproval of substance use are related to the substance use behaviors of adolescents. Race/ethnicity and SES were examined for moderating effects on adolescent substance use behaviors.

Methods: This study was a secondary analysis of the National Survey of Drug Use and Health, 2003 (NSDUH,U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, SAMHSA, 2004). The NSDUH utilized a multistage area probability sampling procedure for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The sub-sample for the Protective Factors Study was all respondents falling within the age range of 12 to 17. This sample contained 18,204 cases. For the study analyses the race/ethnicity categories were White (62.9%), Hispanic (14.6%), Black/African American (14.1%) and Other (8.3%). Adolescents in the sample fell into the following socioeconomic levels indicated by total family income; ‘Less than $20,000' (18.7%), ‘$20,000 to $49,999' (36.6%), ‘$50,000 to $74,999' (19.8%), and ‘$75,000 or More' (25%).

The measures in the Protective Factors Study were a subset of measures utilized in the NSDUH. Parental monitoring, school attachment, religiosity, and peer disapproval of substance use were constructed as protective indices based on questions similar to those found in other research. An examination of the construct validity and reliability of each index was completed using the unweighted sample. Internal consistency reliability of all instruments were within acceptable limits (α >= 0.70).

Complex sample logistic regression and linear regression analyses were conducted on the weighted sample to test the hypotheses.

Results: Among the protective factors, the peer disapproval of substance use index (β = -.278) had an inverse significant association (protective) with alcohol use. Likewise religiosity (β = -.085) and parental monitoring (β = -0.66) were significant and negatively (protective of) associated with alcohol use. For initiation of inhalant and illicit drug use other than marijuana those reporting higher on protective indices had lower odds for substance initiation than those reporting lower levels on protective indices. The effects of protective indices were not the same across race/ethnic groups or SES categories suggesting moderating effects. For Hispanic adolescents, peer influence on substance use behaviors was lower than peer influence for White adolescents. Analyses on inhalant use found that those in the $50,000 to 74,999 SES category were nearly 53% less likely to use inhalants than youth in the <$20,000 SES category (OR = .529, p < .05).

Conclusions and Implications: The associations found between protective indices and adolescent substance use behavior suggests that this is an important area for adolescent substance use prevention programs and research. The protective indices examined in this study represent characteristics that are amenable to change.