Structural Strain: An Ecological Paradigm for Studying African American Drug Use

ABSTRACT

Social structural factors (gender, age, income/wealth and geographic variations) are often ignored as descriptive or explanatory variables in drug studies. They are critical for differentiating drug use patterns, whether within an ethno-racial group or between ethno-racial groups. Within the African American community, specifically, drug involvement differences are best explained by heterogeneity in degrees of success in and attachment to mainstream social institutions (family, church, schools, workplace).

These considerations predominate in structural strain theory, offered here for explaining African American drug use patterns. An ecological model operationalizes the theory and posits three different interlinking levels of social influence on individual drug use behavior: social structural, institutional, and interpersonal networks (macrosystem, exosystem, and microsystem, respectively). Findings then are presented from a 25-year study conducted with one community representative African American cohort that supports the importance of the structural strain premise in explaining African American drug use patterns. An example of study measures arrayed according to the ecological paradigm is provided. Finally, its utility is demonstrated in enumerating sources of error that have led to incomplete and sometimes contradictory findings regarding African American drug use.