Early experience with racial discrimination and conduct disorder as predictors of subsequent drug use: A critical period hypothesis

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Abstract

A critical period hypothesis linking early experiences with both racial discrimination and conduct disorder (CD) with subsequent drug use was examined in a panel of 889 African American adolescents (age 10.5 at time 1) and their parents. Analyses indicated that these early experiences did predict use by the adolescents at time 3 (T3)–5 years later. These relations were both direct and indirect, being mediated by an increase in affiliation with friends who were using drugs. The relations existed controlling for parents’ reports of their use, discrimination experiences, and their socioeconomic status (SES). The impact of these early experiences on African American families is discussed.

Introduction

Conduct disorder in early adolescence has been shown to predict early use of substances (Robins and McEvoy, 1990, Windle, 1993), as well as use later in life (Armstrong and Costello, 2002, Brook and Newcomb, 1995). In fact, it is, arguably, the individual difference factor most strongly linked with adolescent drug use (Sung et al., 2004) and abuse (Crowley and Riggs, 1995, Winters et al., 1999). Most of the studies documenting this relation have involved cross-sectional designs, however, and they have usually relied on older adolescents or young adults’ retrospective reports of their earlier behavior problems and their use (Windle, 1993). Moreover, the vast majority of studies have focused on European Americans. Consequently, reviews of the literature have concluded with calls for longitudinal studies that include minorities to ascertain absolute levels of use and CD, and also to examine the relation between the two in non-White minority groups (DelBello et al., 2001, Schaeffer et al., 2003).

Although African American adolescents consistently report less substance use and later onset than White adolescents (Johnston et al., 2004), self-reported and observed aggressive and externalizing behaviors are more prevalent among Black youths (Achenbach and Rescorla, 2001, Randolph et al., 2000), which suggests that CD diagnoses are likely to be higher as well (DelBello et al., 2001, Turner and Gil, 2002). Two possible reasons have been suggested as explanations for this apparent disproportional involvement of Black youth in aggressive activities (other than bias in reporting of criminal involvement). One is the fact that Blacks are more likely than Whites to live in lower SES environments (Wallace, 1999, Williams et al., 1997), which are characterized by greater exposure to aggressive models (Aneshensel and Sucoff, 1996), and higher rates of CD (Brody et al., 2001, Loeber, 1990). A second reason is the fact that Black youths are exposed to an additional source of stress that seldom affects White youths and that is racial discrimination (Williams and Chung, in press). This stress has been linked with both internalizing and externalizing behaviors in adolescents (Kessler et al., 1999). More generally, stress from discrimination has often been suggested as a central factor contributing to the pronounced disparity in health status that exists between Blacks and Whites in the U.S. (Allison, 1998, Krieger, 2000, Krieger, 2003, Williams et al., 2003).

The association between discrimination and internalizing behavior has been extensively studied, although, again, most of the research has been cross-sectional. In general, the relation is as one would expect: discrimination is correlated with reports of distress, including depression and anxiety (Kessler et al., 1999, Simons et al., 2002, Williams et al., 1997, Williams and Williams-Morris, 2000). Fewer studies have looked at perceived discrimination and delinquency or externalizing behavior, but all of them have found positive relations. Biafora et al. (1993) reported that Black adolescent boys’ mistrust of Whites was a significant predictor of their delinquent behavior. Similarly, Taylor et al. (1994) found that racial mistrust was related to willingness to break the law among Black adolescents (6th and 7th grade). That relation existed controlling for SES levels, which were also related to deviance acceptance. Nyborg and Curry (2003) reported a correlation between perceived racism and externalizing behaviors in a sample of 84 African American boys (see also Simons et al., 2003). Similarly, Whitbeck et al. (2001) found that perceived discrimination was related to delinquent behavior in a sample of American Indian adolescents (age 9–16). That association was both direct and indirect, through the relation of discrimination with anger.

A possible mediator of the discrimination/health relation is health-impairing behavior, especially substance use and abuse. The study by Whitbeck et al. (2001) included measures of substance use, which were related to reports of both discrimination and delinquent behavior. The study was cross-sectional, but it did provide evidence of a positive relation between racial discrimination and use within a vulnerable population. Among African Americans, significant correlations have also been found between self-reports of discriminatory experience and reports of drug use (Resnicow et al., 1999), smoking (Landrine and Klonoff, 1996, Landrine and Klonoff, 2000), and alcohol use and abuse (Sanders-Phillips, 1999). In general, although based almost exclusively on cross-sectional data, many researchers have claimed that discrimination does promote substance use in Blacks (Curtis-Boles and Jenkins-Monroe, 2000, Wright, 2001; see Clark et al., 1999, for a review).

Recently, Gibbons et al. (2004) reported evidence of a prospective link between perceptions of racial discrimination and substance use (tobacco, drugs, and alcohol) in Black adults, most of whom were women. Their reports of discriminatory experiences at T1 were related to their current use (p < .001) and their reports of use almost 2 years later (p < .01); thus, discrimination predicted change in use over this time period. These relations were both direct and indirect. The latter relation involved mediation by distress (depression and anxiety), as T1 discrimination was associated with both T1 and T2 distress. In other words, those who had had more experience with discrimination at T1 reported more distress and more use at that time, and again at T2, relative to those low in discriminatory experience. This relation existed controlling for SES levels (education and income), which were also related to T1 and T2 distress and discrimination.

A similar relation emerged among the children of the Black women in Gibbons et al. (2004). Perceived discrimination was related directly to their distress and indirectly to their use, with the latter relation being mediated by the former: discrimination  T1 and T2 distress  T2 use. The discrimination to use relation was also mediated by affiliation with “deviant” (using) peers: discrimination  affiliation with deviant peers  use. There was no direct relation between T1 distress and T2 use, in part, because the adolescents reported very little use or distress. Nonetheless, the study did provide evidence of a prospective relation between discrimination and substance use. Given the significance of the issue and the magnitude of the health disparity problem, these authors and many others have called for more studies of the discrimination/use relation (Clark et al., 1999, McCabe et al., 2001).

Although most children who experiment with drugs or engage in occasional use at an early age do not develop subsequent abuse problems, early use is a reliable predictor of subsequent abuse and other behavioral problems (Anthony and Petronis, 1995, Hawkins et al., 1997, Kaplan et al., 1984, Wills et al., 2001). Similarly, there is some evidence that early experience with mental disorders also increases risk for later drug use and abuse (Christie et al., 1988). The relation has received relatively little attention, however, given the dearth of longitudinal studies that include child psychiatric diagnoses and multiple waves of assessment of substance use.

Moffitt's theory of antisocial behavior (Moffitt, 1993) also focuses on early experiences. She distinguishes between early onset of anti-social behavior, generally prior to age 11, and adolescence-onset, which usually occurs between ages 12 and 16. Those in the former category are more prone to behavioral problems later in life, including aggressive behavior (White et al., 1990), arrests (Moffitt and Silva, 1988), long-term criminal offending (Loeber, 1982), and adult anti-social personality disorder (Robins, 1978). In contrast, Moffitt maintains that manifestation of conduct problems in adolescence is actually fairly common (“normative”) and much less predictive of problems later in life.

The Black adolescents in Gibbons et al. (2004) were only 10.5 on average at Wave 1. Nonetheless, 91% of them reported they had experienced some racial discrimination by that age. Although it was not a frequent occurrence for most (usually limited to a few incidents), it did appear to have a significant impact on them, in terms of later distress and use. This impact led the authors to suggest that experiences with racial discrimination at an early age are especially aversive and may lead to behavioral problems later in life (a similar conclusion was drawn by Whitbeck et al., 2001, with regard to American Indians).

The current study examines a critical period hypothesis, which maintains that aversive experiences in late childhood (age 8–11), such as racial discrimination, are especially impactful with regard to later substance use and other behavior problems. There are two reasons for this. First, this is a time of development during which identity is forming and changing, largely as a result of increasing awareness of self vis a vis others, as well as an internalization of others’ opinions and standards (Harter, 1999). This is true for both self- and ethnic identity (Phinney, 1989). More generally, socially based information emphasizing distinction from the majority group – i.e., one of the messages that comes with discrimination – is likely to have greater impact on identity formation than is information suggesting similarity to the group (see Blanton and Christie, 2003, deviance regulation theory; Williams-Morris, 1996).

A second element of the early experience hypothesis is that children who experience discrimination or manifest CD at an early age are likely to gravitate toward other adolescents who have had similar experiences (homophily) and are deviance-prone. This is consistent with Caspi et al., 1987, Caspi et al., 1989) concept of cumulative continuity: i.e., anti-social children seek out environments that foster additional development of anti-social behaviors (see also Tarter et al., 1999). Moreover, others have also suggested that affiliation with deviant peers may mediate the effects of early CD on behavior (Barnow et al., 2002, Robins and McEvoy, 1990). Consistent with this idea, Sung et al. (2004) recently found that the CD  use relation was mediated by affiliation with deviant peers through age 13. In the current study, we assumed that children who experience a lot of discrimination or show signs of CD should be more likely to “accept” deviance – by affiliating with others who are using and by using themselves; maximum use should be reported by those with both early CD and early discriminatory experience.

The current study continued the examination of the discrimination/substance use relation initiated in Gibbons et al. (2004). As in that study, the current sample also came from the Family and Community Health Study (FACHS), which is a panel study of environmental factors associated with health (mental and physical) in African American families. This time, a third wave of data was available (age 15.5), and so there was considerably more use than in Gibbons et al. (2004) when the adolescents were only age 10 and 12. A number of control variables were included, most of them coming from the parents, e.g., their discriminatory experiences, substance use, and distress. Other variables, besides CD diagnosis, that were not in Gibbons et al. (2004) were also included in the analyses. The following specific hypotheses were tested, each based on previous research.

  • (a)

    Antecedents of CD. Early (i.e., T1) discriminatory experiences are positively related to an early diagnosis of CD. In addition to discrimination, other anticipated correlates and predictors of CD were parental use and distress (Kazdin, 1987, Wickramaratne and Weissman, 1998).

  • (b)

    Critical period. Early experience with discrimination and early onset CD will both be associated with earlier use of drugs and subsequent drug use; the two together will predict the most use. These relations will exist controlling for SES, which has typically been confounded with ethnicity in previous studies of both use and CD (Schaeffer et al., 2003). In this regard, an advantage of the FACHS is that it includes a diverse sample of Black families, with a considerable range of SES; thus, race/ethnic group and SES are not confounded.

  • (c)

    Mediation of the relations between CD and discrimination and T3 drug use. In addition to the direct relations mentioned above, discrimination and CD will both have indirect relations with use, through their direct relations with affiliation with friends who are using.

  • (d)

    CD and affiliation. Finally, the longitudinal design of the current study also allowed for an estimation of causal priority, or ordering, of the anticipated relation between CD and affiliation at T1 and T2. As suggested earlier, the prediction was that early onset CD would be a stronger predictor of change in affiliation (i.e., homophily) than vice-versa.

Section snippets

Participants

A total of 889 families, 467 in Iowa, 422 in Georgia, participated at T1 in the FACHS. Each family had a target child between the ages of 10 and 12 (mean = 10.5) and a primary caregiver (parent), defined as a person living in the same household who was primarily responsible for the target's care. Among the 889 families, 779 (88%) remained in the panel at T2; 767 (86%) continued their participation at T3, with 559 families providing complete data across all three waves. When fewer than 1/3 of the

Overview

There were three different types of analyses. SEM was conducted to examine hypotheses a, b, and c—i.e., the relations among the exogenous, endogenous, and outcome (T3 drug use) measures. ANOVAs were conducted to assess amount of use as a function of CD diagnosis and T1 perceived discrimination (hypothesis b). Finally, cross-lag analyses were conducted to examine the relation between CD and affiliation with deviant peers across the two waves of data collection (hypothesis d).

Percentages and frequencies

Percentages of

Early CD as a predictor

Although it occurred in only a small percentage of the sample (4.3%), early onset CD had a noticeable effect on these adolescents. First, it was associated with earlier use of marijuana. More important, it was also associated with more drug use 5 years later. In fact, it was a stronger predictor of targets’ later use than was the more proximal (T2) CD diagnosis and their parents’ self-reports of use at T3 (which was not related significantly).3

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH62668 and National Institute of Drug Abuse Grant DA 018871-01 (to FXG) and NIDA Grant DA-03-007 (to E. Jane Costello).

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