Substance Use Trajectories of Black and White Young Men from Adolescence to Emerging Adulthood: A Two-Part Growth Curve Analysis

Abstract

This study examined trajectories of substance use among Black and White young men (N = 983) from adolescence to emerging adulthood using two-part growth curve analysis. Controlling for parental socioeconomic status, Blacks were significantly less likely to use alcohol and hard drugs than Whites at age 17 and drank significantly fewer drinks. The alcohol prevalence gap between Blacks and Whites further increased over time. Blacks in the older cohort had higher growth in the frequency of alcohol use than Whites. Blacks and Whites did not differ in prevalence of marijuana use, although Blacks in the younger cohort reported higher growth in prevalence and higher frequency at age 17. Different prevention approaches may be needed to reduce substance use among Blacks and Whites.

This research was supported, in part, by grants from National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (ARRA R01 AA016798), National Institute of Mental Health (P30 MH079920; R01 MH73841), National Institute on Drug Abuse (P20 DA17552; R01 DA 41101), the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP 2005-JK-FX-0001; 96-MU-FX-0020), and the Department of Health of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Points of view in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The authors thank Kristen McCormick and Rebecca Stallings for their assistance in preparing the data files.

Notes

^a Constrained to be zero by default.

^b Constrained to be zero.

*p < .05; **p < .01.

^a Constrained to be zero by default.

^b Constrained to be zero.

*p < .05; **p < .01.

^a Constrained to be zero by default.

*p < .05; **p < .01.

In Figures 2 to 5, the young and old cohort trajectories were overlaid using Excel. Parental SES was not adjusted. However, given very small or nonexistent effects of parental SES on growth trajectories (Table 3), we expect that there would be little difference between the shown estimated means at each age and those adjusted for parental SES. Figures 2b, 3b, and 4b were drawn using estimated means at each age from two-group (race), two-part growth curve models analyzed separately for each cohort.