Abstract
This study identified heterogeneous classes of alcohol-related neighborhood characteristics to which multi-ethnic, early adolescents in urban communities are exposed. The sample comprised 4,215 youth from 42 community areas in Chicago, Illinois who completed surveys at the beginning of 6th grade (2002). Neighborhood measures included: (1) mean number of alcohol outlets per 1,000 population per community area; (2) alcohol purchase attempt rate by pseudo-underage youth; (3) average number of alcohol advertisements within 1,500 feet of each school per community; and (4) a Census 2000-based deprivation index. Parents and community leaders provided data on perceived neighborhood problems and parental prevention actions, and neighborhood strength and preventive action by communities, law enforcement, and community organizations, respectively. Multilevel latent class analysis identified the number and characteristics of heterogeneous latent neighborhood classes in which these youth are exposed. Five classes best described the heterogeneity among the sample: (1) Low social capital/low exposure/high access to alcohol (19.8%), (2) Low social capital/low exposure/low access to alcohol (24.5%), (3) Moderate social capital/low exposure/high access to alcohol (30.0%), (4) Moderate social capital/moderate exposure/low access to alcohol (20.1%), and (5) High social capital/moderate exposure/high access to alcohol (5.6%). The racial/ethnic distribution among the classes varied considerably. Results suggest there is substantive heterogeneity among this seemingly homogeneous urban population. Further, they highlight the socioeconomic disadvantage of these inner-city communities and the resource disparity across the racial/ethnic groups. Understanding the nuances among communities may lend to development of more efficacious preventive interventions and policy initiatives, inform theory, and help prioritize limited resources.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
US Census Bureau. (2000). United States Census 2000. Washington, DC: US Department of Commerce.
Hobbs, F., & Stoops, N. (2002). Demographic trends in the 20th century: Census 2000 special reports. Washington, DC: US Census Bureau.
US Census Bureau. (2003). Census Bureau releases population estimates by age, sex, race and Hispanic origin. Retrieved August 29, 2008 from http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/2003/cb03-16.html.
US Census Bureau. (2007). Population estimates. Washington, DC: US Census Bureau.
Coulton, C. J., Korbin, J. E., Su, M., & Chow, J. (1995). Community level factors and child maltreatment rates. Child Development, 66, 1262–1276.
Duncan, S. C., Duncan, T. E., & Strycker, L. A. (2002). A multilevel analysis of neighborhood context and youth alcohol and drug problems. Prevention Science, 3, 125–133.
Sampson, R. J. (1992). Family management and child development: Insights from social disorganization theory. In J. McCord (Ed.), Advances in criminological theory. New Brunswick: Transaction.
Allison, K. W., Crawford, I., Leone, P. E., et al. (1999). Adolescent substance use: Preliminary examining of school and neighborhood context. American Journal of Community Psychology, 27, 111–141.
Chuang, Y. C., Ennett, S. T., Bauman, K. E., & Foshee, V. A. (2005). Neighborhood influences on adolescent cigarette and alcohol use: Mediating effects through parent and peer behaviors. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 46, 187–204.
Elliott, D. S., Wilson, W. J., Huizinga, D., Sampson, R. J., Elliott, A., & Rankin, B. (1996). The effects of neighborhood disadvantage on adolescent development. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 33, 389–426.
Galea, S., Ahern, J., Tracy, M., & Vlahov, D. (2007). Neighborhood income and income distribution and the use of cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 32, S195–S202.
Crum, R. M., Lillie-Blanton, M., & Anthony, J. C. (1996). Neighborhood environment and opportunity to use cocaine and other drugs in late childhood and early adolescence. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 43, 155–161.
Gibbons, F. X., Gerrard, M., Lune, L. S. V., Wills, T. A., Brody, G., & Conger, R. D. (2004). Context and cognitions: Environmental risk, social influence, and adolescent substance use. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 1048–1061.
Hill, T. D., & Angel, R. J. (2005). Neighborhood disorder, psychological distress, and heavy drinking. Social Science and Medicine, 61, 965–975.
Coleman, J. C. (2007). Social capital in the creation of human capital. The American Journal of Sociology, 94, S95–S120.
Poortinga, W. (2006). Do health behaviors mediate the association between social capital and health? Preventive Medicine, 43, 488–493.
Siahpush, M., Borland, R., Taylor, J., Singh, G. K., Ansari, Z., & Serraglio, A. (2006). The association of smoking with perception of income inequality, relative material well-being, and social capital. Social Science and Medicine, 63, 2801–2812.
Kawachi, I., Kenneday, B. P., Lochner, K., & Prothrow-Stith, D. (1997). Social capital, income inequality, and mortality. American Journal of Public Health, 87, 1491–1498.
Collins, R. L., Ellickson, P. L., McCaffrey, D., & Hambarsoomians, K. (2007). Early adolescent exposure to alcohol advertising and its relationship to underage drinking. Journal of Adolescent Health, 40, 527–534.
Pasch, K. E., Komro, K. A., Perry, C. L., Hearst, M. O., & Farbakhsh, K. (2007). Outdoor alcohol advertising near schools: What does it advertise and how is it related to intentions and use of alcohol among young adolescents? Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 68, 587–596.
Scribner, R. A., Theall, K. R., Simonsen, N., Mason, K., Johnson, S., & DeJong, W. (2007). The contextual role of alcohol outlet density on college drinking. Alcoholism-Clinical and Experimental Research, 31, 54A–54A.
Gorman, D. M., Labouvie, E. W., Speer, P. W., & Subaiya, A. P. (1998). Alcohol availability and domestic violence. American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 24, 661–673.
Scribner, R., Cohen, D., Kaplan, S., & Allen, S. H. (1999). Alcohol availability and homicide in New Orleans: Conceptual considerations for small area analysis of the effect of alcohol outlet density. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 60, 310–316.
Scribner, R. A., Mackinnon, D. P., & Dwyer, J. H. (1994). Alcohol outlet density and motor-vehicle crashes in Los-Angeles-County Cities. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 55, 447–453.
Forrest, R., & Kearns, A. (2001). Social cohesion, social capital and the neighbourhood. Urban Studies, 38, 2125–2143.
Hackbarth, D. P., Schnopp-Wyatt, D., Katz, D., Williams, J., Silvestri, B., & Pfleger, M. (2001). Collaborative research and action to control the geographic placement of outdoor advertising of alcohol and tobacco products in Chicago. Public Health Reports, 116, 558–567.
Pollack, C. E., Cubbin, C., Ahn, D., & Winkleby, M. (2005). Neighbourhood deprivation and alcohol consumption: Does the availability of alcohol play a role? International Journal of Epidemiology, 34, 772–780.
Treno, A. J., Alaniz, M. L., & Gruenewald, P. J. (2000). The use of drinking places by gender, age and ethnic groups: An analysis of routine drinking activities. Addiction, 95, 537–551.
Komro, K. A., Perry, C. L., Veblen-Mortenson, S., et al. (2008). Outcomes for a randomized controlled trial of a multi-component alcohol use preventive intervention for urban youth: Project Northland Chicago. Addiction, 103, 606–618.
Komro, K. A., Perry, C. L., & Williams, C. L. (1999). Research and evaluation design of a community-wide program to reduce adolescent alcohol use: Project Northland Phase II. In S. Casswell, et al. (Eds.), Kettil Bruun Society thematic meeting: Fourth symposium on community action research and the prevention of alcohol and other drug problems (pp. 181–193). Auckland, New Zealand: Alcohol & Public Health Research Unit, University of Auckland.
Wagenaar, A. C., & Streff, F. M. (1990). Public opinion on alcohol policy. Journal of Public Health Policy, 17, 189–205.
Singh, G. K. (2003). Area deprivation and widening inequalities in US mortality, 1969–1998. American Journal of Public Health, 93, 1137–1143.
Asparouhov, T., & Muthén, B. (2006). Multilevel mixture models, Version 3. Los Angeles, CA: Muthén & Muthén.
Muthén, L. K., & Muthén, B. (2006). Mplus. Los Angeles, CA: Muthén & Muthén.
Muthén, B., & Muthén, L. K. (2000). Integrating person-centered and variable-centered analyses: Growth mixture modeling with latent trajectory classes. Alcoholism-Clinical and Experimental Research, 24, 882–891.
Lanza, S. T., Flaherty, B. P., & Collins, L. M. (2003). Latent class and latent transition analysis. In J. A. Schinka & W. F. Velicer (Eds.), Comprehensive handbook of psychology (pp. 663–685). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Raftery, A. E. (1986). A note on Bayes factors for log-linear contingency table models with vague prior information. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series B (Methodological), 48, 249–250.
Akaike, H. (1973). Information theory and an extension of the maximum likelihood principle. In B. N. Petrov & F. Csaki (Eds.), Second international symposium on information theory (pp. 267–281). Budapest: Akademiai Kaido.
Hagenaars, J., & McCutcheon, A. (2002). Applied latent class analysis models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lo, Y. T., Mendell, N. R., & Rubin, D. B. (2001). Testing the number of components in a normal mixture. Biometrika, 88, 767–778.
Kuha, J. (2004). Comparisons of assumptions and performance. Sociological Methods & Research, 33, 188–229.
Muthén, B., Brown, C. H., Masyn, K., et al. (2002). General growth mixture modeling for randomized preventive interventions. Biostatistics, 3, 459–475.
Coleman, J. C. (1994). Foundations of social theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bernstein, K. T., Galea, S., Ahern, J., Tracy, M., & Vlahov, D. (2007). The built environment and alcohol consumption in urban neighborhoods. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 91, 244–252.
Gruenewald, P. J., Johnson, F. W., & Treno, A. J. (2002). Outlets, drinking and driving: A multilevel analysis of availability. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 63, 460–468.
Kwate, N. O. A., Jernigan, M., & Lee, T. (2007). Prevalence, proximity and predictors of alcohol ads in Central Harlem. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 42, 635–640.
LaVeist, T. A., & Wallace, J. M., Jr. (2000). Health risk and inequitable distribution of liquor stores in African American neighborhood. Social Science and Medicine, 51, 613–617.
Szapocznik, J., & Coatsworth, J. D. (1999). An ecodevelopmental framework for organizing risk and protection for drug abuse: A developmental model of risk and protection. In M. Glantz & C. R. Hartel (Eds.), Drug abuse: Origins and interventions (pp. 331–366). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Griffin, K. W., Scheier, L. M., Botvin, G. J., & Diaz, T. (2000). Ethnic and gender differences in psychosocial risk, protection, and adolescent alcohol use. Prevention Science, 1, 199–212.
Acknowledgments
This study was funded by grants from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (R01 AA013458; R01 AA016549), awarded to Dr. Kelli A. Komro. The authors thank Karen Alfano, MBA, for survey design and management of data collection, Kian Farbakhsh, M.S., for database design and management, Cheryl Perry, PhD, for her overall contributions to the PNC study, and Robert Weiler, PhD, Dennis Thombs, PhD, and Steven Pokorny, PhD for their comments in preparation of this manuscript. We also appreciate the feedback received from the Prevention Science Methodology Group. We gratefully acknowledge the participation of students, parents and community leaders in the PNC trial.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Tobler, A.L., Komro, K.A. & Maldonado-Molina, M.M. Early Adolescent, Multi-ethnic, Urban Youth’s Exposure to Patterns of Alcohol-related Neighborhood Characteristics. J Community Health 34, 361–369 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10900-009-9168-2
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10900-009-9168-2