Longitudinal Associations Between Substance Use and Violence in Adolescence Through Adulthood

Abstract

Substance use and violence are interrelated behaviors during adolescence and early adulthood. Using National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health data, this study examined the longitudinal relationships between (a) alcohol and violence perpetration, (b) marijuana and perpetration, (c) alcohol and victimization, and (d) marijuana and victimization. Cross-lagged structural equation models showed that longitudinal patterns of violence and substance use vary somewhat and that the ways preceding stages of violence and substance use are associated with subsequent violence, and substance use differ by violence, substance type, and transitional stage. Our findings call for primary and secondary prevention strategies targeting early adulthood.

KEYWORDS:

• adolescents
• alcohol
• heavy drinking
• life course
• longitudinal
• marijuana
• victimization
• violence

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research uses data from Add Health, a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available on the Add Health website (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis.

Additional information

Funding

Funding support for this project was provided by grant numbers T32AA0072-40 from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism to Camillia K. Lui, and T32DA07272-22 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to June Y. Lim.