Elsevier

Addictive Behaviors

Volume 41, February 2015, Pages 51-57
Addictive Behaviors

Influences of behavior and academic problems at school entry on marijuana use transitions during adolescence in an African-American sample

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2014.09.030Get rights and content

Highlights

  • This study included data from 458 African Americans followed from 1st to 9th grade.

  • Two problem behavior classes emerged; externalizing and attention/concentration.

  • Academic problems co-occurred with both problem behavior subtypes.

  • Externalizing problems were associated with increased risk of being offered marijuana.

  • Attention/concentration problems were associated with use given an opportunity to use.

Abstract

Background

The aim of this study was to examine how patterns of academic and behavior problems in the first grade relate to longitudinal transitions in marijuana use from middle school through entry into high school among African-Americans.

Methods

Latent class and latent transition analyses were conducted on a community sample of 458 low-income, urban-dwelling African-Americans.

Results

Two behavior problem classes emerged at school entry; externalizing and attention/concentration. Academic problems co-occurred with both problem behavior classes although more strongly with attention/concentration. Youth in the attention/ concentration problem class were more likely to transition from no marijuana involvement to use and problems beginning in the 7th grade and to use and problems given the opportunity to use marijuana early in high school compared to youth with no problems. Youth in the externalizing behavior problem class were significantly more likely to transition from no involvement to having a marijuana opportunity during the transition to high school compared to youth in the attention/concentration problems class.

Conclusions

These findings highlight the importance of developing prevention programs and providing school services that address the co-occurrence of academic and behavior problems, as well as their subtype specific risks for marijuana involvement, particularly for low-income minority youth who may be entering school less ready than their non-minority peers. These findings also provide evidence for a need to continue to deliver interventions in middle school and high school focused on factors that may protect youth during these critical transition periods when they may be especially vulnerable to opportunities to use marijuana based on their academic and behavioral risk profiles.

Introduction

Marijuana use now exceeds the rate of cigarette use among adolescents; rates of past 30 day cigarette smoking are 4.9%, 10.8% and 17.1%, respectively for 8th, 10th and 12th graders compared to 6.5%, 17.0% and 22.9% for marijuana use (Johnston, 'O’Malley, Bachman, & Schulenberg, 2013). While rates of marijuana use have historically been higher in Whites than African-Americans, increases in African-American marijuana use and abuse in the 1990s, particularly among younger African-Americans, began to narrow this difference (Compton, Grant, Colliver, Glantz, & Stinson, 2004). Recent data show that rates are now slightly higher for African-Americans aged 12 and older than Whites (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2013). According to the most recent Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) survey of high school students, African-American males have the highest rate of current marijuana use compared to all other racial, ethnic and gender groups (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2012). Despite these increases over the past 20 years, little research has examined the longitudinal patterns and antecedents of African-American marijuana use (Brown, Flory, Lynam, Leukefeld, & Clayton, 2004).

Life course social field theory provides one framework for understanding the role that early academic, social and behavioral competencies play in the development of marijuana use that may be particularly salient to low-income African-American children (Patterson, Reid, & Dishion, 1992). According to this theory, early elementary school is a critical transition period that requires successful adaption to social task demands (e.g., making friends, learning classroom expectations, acquiring academic skills, and complying with adult directions). Children, however, arrive at school with diverse experiences. Children from middle-class, educated families are likely to have attended educationally-oriented preschools, have traveled, visited libraries and museums and to have been read to by their parents and teachers. They have been prepared to enter school since toddlerhood in contrast to poor, minority, inner-city children who are prepared to manage an entirely different set of experiences (e.g., assuming responsibilities in the household, caring for younger siblings), which may not be compatible with school expectations (Wilson, 1989).

While early academic and behavior problems in the classroom have independently been associated with later risk for substance use and dependence (e.g. Clark et al., 2008, Colder et al., 2013, Storr et al., 2011), there is little research focused on the impact of a child experiencing both academic and behavior problems despite research documenting that they co-occur in children at rates greater than expected by chance (e.g., Bradshaw, Buckley, & Ialongo, 2008). In an effort to understand these relationships, Reinke, Herman, Petras, and Ialongo (2008) used latent class analysis to identify subgroups of children based on their observed patterns of academic and behavior problems at school entry. They found that children with co-occurring academic and behavior problems in the first grade had the highest likelihood of negative outcomes, specifically special education placement, deviant peer affiliation, suspension from school, and conduct problems.

The purpose of the current study is to expand upon these findings, focusing solely on African-Americans to yield insight into the co-occurrence of behavioral and academic problems displayed by this racial subgroup at school entry. We then use latent transition analysis (LTA) to examine the influence of latent classes of behavior and academic problems in the first grade on transitions between latent stages of marijuana involvement during early adolescence. Specifically, the objectives of this study are to: (1) identify classes of academic and behavior problems in the first grade in an urban, African-American sample and estimate their prevalence; (2) identify stages of marijuana involvement from the 6th through 9th grades; (3) examine the probability of transitions between stages; and (4) investigate the influence of the classes of academic and behavior problems at school entry on transitions in marijuana involvement during early adolescence.

Section snippets

Participants

Data were drawn from a longitudinal study conducted by the Baltimore Prevention Research Center (BPRC) at Johns Hopkins University. The original study population consisted of a total of 798 children and families, representative of students entering the first grade in nine Baltimore City public elementary schools in 1993. The children were recruited for participation in a school-based, randomized preventive trial targeting early learning and aggressive/disruptive behavior (Ialongo et al., 1999).

Subtypes of early academic and behavior problems: latent class analysis

The AIC suggested a best-fitting model based on three classes (1 — class = 9219; 2 — class = 8548; 3 — class = 8452; 4 — class = 8482). The entropy for the three class model was 0.97 indicating high certainty in classification. The introduction of a fourth class resulted in an entropy of 0.86 suggesting less class separation. A check of the local independence assumption via the log-odds ratio residuals for the three class model indicated that there were no residual dependencies. Under the three-class

Discussion

Our results suggest that academic problems occur in combination with both externalizing and attention/concentration problems in African-Americans, although to a lesser extent with externalizing problems. In contrast to the work of Reinke et al. (2008) that included both minorities and non-minorities, we did not find a subtype of children that were experiencing academic or behavior problems in isolation. Further, attention and concentration problems were also present with moderate probability in

Role of funding source

Funding for this secondary data analysis was provided by the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) Grant DA032550. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of NIDA or the National Institutes of Health. NIDA and NIH had no further role in the analysis and interpretation of the data; in the writing of the report; or in the decision to submit the paper for publication.

Contributors

Beth Reboussin, Nicholas Ialongo and Kerry Green conceptualized the analyses. Beth Reboussin conducted the analyses. Beth Reboussin wrote the first draft of the paper, and all authors reviewed and edited the drafts and approved the final version.

Conflict of interest

All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

Funding for this secondary data analysis was provided by the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) Grant DA032550. The original data collection was funded by DA11796 & MH57005.

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