Frequent childhood geographic relocation: Its impact on drug use initiation and the development of alcohol and other drug-related problems among adolescents and young adults
Section snippets
Theoretical rationale
Moving may be positively associated with youthful drug use for a number of reasons. First, children are seldom involved in the decision-making processes preceding a move and consequently may feel a strong sense of alienation, helplessness, and frustration. Life-events theorists consider degree of personal control over a particular event to be an important determinant of healthy psychological functioning (Newcomb & Harlow, 1986).
Second, moving often entails reduced or lost contact with close
Sample and weighting
Data for this study were obtained from the 1990–1991 Ontario Mental Health Supplement, a stratified, multistage, area probability sample of the Ontario population age 15 and older. Excluded were residents of First Nations People’s reserves, inmates, foreign service personnel, and residents of remote areas. The sample consisted of a 9,953-case subset randomly selected from eligible households participating in the third and fourth quarters of data collection of the 1990 Ontario Health Survey. The
Statistical analysis
The present analysis uses the AFT hazard model in SAS® to examine predictors of the timing of onset of drug use and progression to drug-related problems. Like other hazard models, the AFT model is advantageous over conventional techniques of analysing data such as logistic regression because it makes full use of right-censored cases (i.e., individuals who have not experienced the event of interest by the survey date) in the estimation of its parameters and at the same time permits the study of
Measurement
In the Supplement, information on childhood risk factors, drug use, and all psychiatric disorders was obtained using a modified version of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI). The CIDI is a structured diagnostic interview for field interviewers without any formal clinical training designed to generate DSM-III-R (American Psychiatric Association, 1987) and ICD-10 diagnoses for psychiatric disorders. World Health Organization studies suggest that it demonstrates good
Results
Table 1 presents lifetime prevalence estimates of drug use and drug-related problems by number of geographic moves before the age of 16. For most drug categories, results indicate a steady increase in the prevalence of drug use and drug-related problems corresponding to an increasing number of childhood moves. For example, more than one in five respondents reporting four or more moves before the age of 16 report lifetime use of hallucinogens (22.8%), nearly triple the rate (8.8%) of nonmovers.
Discussion
This study explored the relationship between frequent moving during the early childhood and adolescent years and the timing of onset of drug use and progression to drug-related problems. The hypothesis that early moves would be associated with a hastening of time to first drug use and drug-related problems received strong support.
Adjusting for a number of potentially confounding factors known to influence both relocation and drug use (e.g., parental divorce, parental socioeconomic background),
Limitations and directions for future research
This study is not without its limitations. The use of retrospective data to model childhood variables raises the possibility of inaccuracies in respondent recall. Previous evidence has shown that some respondents, particularly those with a history of mental illness, may forget when events occurred or report the occurrence of distant past events closer to the present (a phenomenon known as “telescoping”). In multivariate models, underreporting or overreporting of events, which varies
Summary
The results of this study have provided new evidence of a significant positive association between childhood and adolescent geographic relocation and the initiation and progression of illicit drug use and drug-related problems. Similar results have been obtained for other behaviours related to drug use, including school dropout, deviance, sexual promiscuity, and conduct disorder.
Because environmental change for children is sufficiently potent to generate formal and informal referrals to special
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2017, International Journal of Drug PolicyCitation Excerpt :Several studies conducted in the United States focus directly on relocation and associated changes in alcohol and other drug use, but this work is narrow in focus, only attending to disadvantaged populations or neighbourhoods (Cooper et al., 2013; Genberg et al., 2011; Linton et al., 2016). Some research has explored how child and adolescent residential mobility affects later alcohol and other drug consumption, suggesting that high residential mobility during childhood is a risk to later health and well-being (DeWit, 1998; Stabler, Gurka & Lander, 2015). Limited research indirectly demonstrates the difference relocation can make to consumption patterns while focusing on other issues (Green & Pope, 2008; Moore, 1992; Waldorf, Reinarman & Murphy, 1992).
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