Session: Genetic, Personality, Parenting and Environmental Factors That Shape Healthy Development in Youth (Society for Social Work and Research 21st Annual Conference - Ensure Healthy Development for all Youth)

Ensuring the healthy development for youth remains a significant social work priority. Substance use behaviors play an important role in shaping the healthy development of youth. Although the field of social work has made important advancements in understanding risk and protective factors that influence adolescent substance use behaviors, relatively few social work researchers have focused on genetic factors and multi-systemic, developmental trajectories to uncover prevention targets.

In the proposed symposium, we aim to address this important gap in social work research and review risk and protective factors at multiple ecological levels that play a significant role in the initiation and regular use of substances in adolescents.  We focus on the factors that may predispose youth at various ages in adolescence to initiating substance use so as to better inform prevention efforts. 

Data from the most recent Global Burden of Disease study (2013) suggests that the burden attributable to substance use significantly increases during adolescence (Degenhardt, Stockings, Patton, Hall, & Lynskey, 2016).  We will employ a variety of methodologies ranging from large-scale epidemiological, longitudinal to behavioral genetic analyses and a variety of data sources including some that are based in the United States (Monitoring the Future, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health) but also international datasets to characterize genetic, individual, familial, and contextual factors that predispose adolescents to initiate and progress in using substances. 

Using international data to examine gender differences we show that internalizing symptoms may be an early indicator of future substance use.  The first study indicates that rates of cigarette use initiation and current cigarette use are higher among females with greater levels of internalizing symptoms. 

In the second study, longitudinal data from recent-immigrant Hispanic families in the United States extends our ecological focus by incorporating differences between youth and their parents.  The results of the second study indicate that discrepancies in reported discrimination between parents and adolescents differentially predict youth alcohol use as well as sexual behavior. 

Using recent nationally representative data from Monitoring the Future, the third study examines the commonalities in risk and protective factors at two time-points and suggests that having future goals of attending college and not affiliating with peers who use marijuana are consistent protective factors.

Finally, using data from adolescent twins, the fourth study controls for the influence of biological predispositions and environmental context simultaneously.  Specifically, the fourth study shows that the genetic predisposition to initiate the use of cigarettes and marijuana is higher when youth are exposed to drugs in their neighborhood. Our aim is to comprehensively illustrate empirically validated sources of risk and protection and to discuss the potential benefit of including these as targets for interventions aimed at reducing substance use among youth and enhancing youth health. 

Together, the four studies put forth in this proposal have used various methodologies to comprehensively characterize substance use behaviors in youth.  Our discussion will focus on how factors at the genetic, individual, familial and neighborhood level can be maximized to enhance youth development, health and behavior.