Compounding Privilege, Resilience, and Nonmedical Prescription Stimulant Use among College Students

Abstract

Background: In this study, we examined why non-Hispanic White cisgender men are more likely than other subgroups to misuse prescription stimulants in college. The objective of the current study was to use a strength-based framework to examine intersectional demographic predictors. Methods: We examined gender and race/ethnicity as predictors of nonmedical prescription stimulant use (NPS) among college students. We also investigated resilience as a moderator. This report uses data from an online multisite study conducted at seven universities with 4,764 undergraduate students (70.1% women and 52.0% People of Color). Results: We found that college students who were cisgender men and non-Hispanic White used NPS significantly more than students who identified as another gender and as People of Color. There was also a buffering effect of resilience between race/ethnicity and NPS, such that resilience predicted lower NPS for People of Color, but not non-Hispanic White people 28% of the time. Conclusions: It may be that Students of Color are more resilient than non-Hispanic White students, and this resilience is protective of NPS use in college. Importantly, a compounding-privilege and/or intersectional approach to identity is crucial to fully understanding behavior (in this case NPS) in a diversity of college students; future studies should continue to use and develop such approaches.

Keywords:

• Nonmedical prescription stimulant use
• resilience
• compounding privilege
• college students

Disclosure statement

None of the authors have any conflicts of interest that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence, our work.

Funding details

The author(s) thank the Office of the Provost of W&M University for a faculty summer research grant to Dr. Bravo in support of this work. This project was supported by an Institutional Development Award (IDeA) by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (#82P20GM103432).

Data availability statement

The data from this study are available upon request.

Notes

1 College students also (although less often than for academic purposes) report using prescription stimulants as a party drug to prolong energy while binge drinking or using other drugs, however, the current study focuses on prescription stimulants in the context of academic enhancement/support.

2 2019 APA standards advise that studies survey participants’ gender identity as cisgender or transgender and man, woman, or non-binary, whereas sex refers to whether the individual was assigned male or female at birth. Many studies use sex and gender interchangeably. While we speak to gender differences, we use the terminology applied by the original studies.

3 To study privilege, we dichotomized race and gender. We recognize that there exists a wealth of diversity within those coded “People of Color” and “other gender.” Students in these categories share a lack of privilege in these identities, and privilege is the area of focus for this study. We maintain our method of dichotomization to highlight privilege. However, we recognize that privilege and oppression (among many other factors outside the scope of this study) vary within groups.