Graduate Research Assistant - The Impact of Longitudinal Social Networks on Young Adult Substance Use and Misuse

Project Title

The Impact of Longitudinal Social Networks on Young Adult Substance Use and Misuse

Faculty / Project Lead

Cassie McMillan

Project Description

Adolescent substance use is one of the strongest predictors of drug overdose and death during adulthood. However, most individuals who initiate tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, and other drug use do not report problematic substance use at later points in the life course. To promote healthy substance use trajectories and prevent the social contagion of substance use, it is necessary to identify key factors that increase young people’s odds of problematic use in adulthood. In previous research, peer characteristics and relationships have emerged as important predictors of substance use and misuse in the short term. However, this line of work has yet to consider how adolescent peer network structures, as well as their stability over time, carry implications for patterns of substance use and misuse throughout the life course. The proposed research aims to address this gap by leveraging data from the Promoting School-Community Partnerships to Enhance Resilience (PROSPER) study. PROSPER is a large longitudinal study that followed individuals from adolescence to adulthood in rural US communities, a population that remains understudied in substance use research. Through a data matching initiative with the PROSPER data, the proposed project will develop a friendship network dataset across a uniquely long period of time from early adolescence to young adulthood. The resulting linkages will allow for the analysis of new research questions about substance misuse, network structure, and tie stability during the transition to adulthood. In addition, we will be able to examine how these relationships vary according to individual demographic characteristics (e.g., gender, sexuality) and the network processes that define a youth’s school-community context (e.g., the popularity of substance users), which will be quantified through state-of-the-art statistical methods. We will achieve these goals through two specific aims. Aim 1 evaluates a theoretical-informed model that examines the extent to which direct adolescent friendship ties impact substance use and misuse in young adulthood. Aim 2 considers whether young adults are more likely to report substance use and misuse according to macro-structures of indirect ties and the broader contexts of their adolescent friendship networks. Across both aims, we will also consider how these relationships vary according to whether young people maintain or dissolve their adolescent friendships after leaving high school. Results from these secondary analyses will enhance our understanding of the risk factors associated with substance use and misuse throughout the life course. Additionally, our findings will help guide the identification of optimal network targets for future interventions that aim to reduce long-term, problematic substance use in young adult populations. Informed by our results, prevention programs will be able to leverage healthy social ties and discourage the formation of high-risk relationships, which will enhance their ability to prevent future epidemics related to substance use behaviors.

Qualifications Necessary

Experience with the PROSPER dataset; experience with social network analysis and multi-level modeling; proficiency in R and Stata; research interests in juvenile delinquency and substance use

Hours per Week