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Investigating the Potential Causal Relationship Between Parental Knowledge and Youth Risky Behavior: a Propensity Score Analysis

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Abstract

This longitudinal study aims to explore the potential causal relationship between parental knowledge and youth risky behavior among a sample of rural, early adolescents (84 % White, 47 % male). Using inverse propensity weighting, the sample was adjusted by controlling for 33 potential confounding variables. Confounding variables include other aspects of the parent–child relationship, parental monitoring, demographic variables, and earlier levels of problem behavior. The effect of parental knowledge was significant for youth substance and polysubstance use initiation, alcohol and cigarette use, attitudes towards substance use, and delinquency. Our results suggest that parental knowledge may be causally related to substance use during middle school, as the relationship between knowledge and youth outcomes remained after controlling for 33 different confounding variables. The discussion focuses on understanding issues of causality in parenting and intervention implications.

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Notes

  1. Model results presented are from one imputed dataset. Models were run on five different imputed datasets and the same general pattern was found across datasets. Model estimates were not averaged across imputed datasets because studies suggest that Rubin’s rules do not apply to propensity score models (Qu and Lipkovich 2009).

  2. Results of the regression analysis used to obtain propensity scores are available from the first author upon request. The squared multiple correlation for the regression model is 0.37.

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Acknowledgments

Work on this paper was supported by research grants P50 DA10075-16, R01 DA013709, and F31-DA028047 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute on Drug Abuse or the National Institutes of Health. The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback on this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The School of Social Work, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Melissa A. Lippold

  2. The Methodology Center, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA

    Donna L. Coffman

  3. The Department of Human Development and Family Studies and the Prevention Research Center, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Mark T. Greenberg

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  1. Melissa A. Lippold
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  2. Donna L. Coffman
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  3. Mark T. Greenberg
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Correspondence to Melissa A. Lippold.

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Lippold, M.A., Coffman, D.L. & Greenberg, M.T. Investigating the Potential Causal Relationship Between Parental Knowledge and Youth Risky Behavior: a Propensity Score Analysis. Prev Sci 15, 869–878 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-013-0443-1

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