Risk and Protective Factors for Alcohol and Marijuana Use among African-American Rural and Urban Adolescents

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine individual, family, peer, and community risk and protective factors associated with past-30-days alcohol and marijuana use among African-American adolescents living in rural and urban communities. This study used data collected from 907 tenth- and twelfth-grade African-American students who completed the 2005 Community Youth Survey. Peer and individual risk/protective factors were more influential for urban youths while family and community risk/protective factors were more influential for rural youths. This pattern held for alcohol and marijuana use. Implications for substance use prevention programming are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• rural
• substance use
• urban
• youth

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the Survey and Evaluation Research Laboratory (SERL) and the Community Research Initiative of Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) for data collection. We also acknowledge the support of the Virginia Tobacco Settlement Foundation, and Drs. Rosalie Corona, Aashir Nasim, Randy Koch, and Elizabeth Turf.

Notes

**denotes significance at p < .01 level. *denotes significance at p < .05.