The influence of childhood and early adult adversities on substance use behaviours in racial/ethnically diverse young adult women: a latent class analysis

Abstract

Childhood and adult adversities occur more frequently among women and persons of colour, possibly influencing racial/ethnic disparities in substance use behaviours. This study investigates how childhood and adult adversities cluster together by race/ethnicity and how these clusters predict binge drinking, tobacco, e-cigarette, and marijuana use. Latent class analysis (LCA) was used in a combined sample from the 2015 to 2018 Minnesota College Student Health Survey to identify clusters of childhood and adult adversities among Asian, Black, Latina, and White women aged 18–25. Each substance use outcome was regressed on each adversity cluster across each race/ethnicity group. Across all racial/ethnic groups and substance use outcomes, the high adversity cluster exhibited the greatest risk. Significant racial/ethnic disparities were observed across several substance use behaviours; these were attenuated among women with fewer adversities. The reduced substance use disparities found among those with lower adversities suggest that prevention of adversities may advance health equity.

Keywords:

• adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)
• alcohol
• substance use
• race/ethnicity
• latent class analysis
• women

Availability of data

Requests for data can be made to Katherine Lust, PhD at Boynton Health Services [email protected]

Availability of code

All analyses were carried out in MPlus; code can be provided upon request.

Consent to participate

None required. Our study is a secondary analysis of anonymously collected data, deemed exempt by our University’s IRB.

Credit author statement

Jessica K. Friedman: Writing- Original Draft, Writing- Review & Editing, Visualization N. Jeanie Santaularia: Formal Analysis, Writing- Review & Editing Dunia Dadi Writing- Review & Editing Darin J. Erickson: Methodology, Supervision Katherine Lust: Data Curation, Writing- Review & Editing, and Susan M. Mason: Writing- Review & Editing, Conceptualization, Supervision, Funding acquisition.

Disclosure statement

No potential competing interest was reported by the authors.

Ethics approval

All authors listed on this manuscript have agreed to the listed authorship order and to submission of the manuscript in this form. Neither this manuscript nor one with substantially similar content under our authorship has been published or is being considered for publication elsewhere. The University of Minnesota’s Institutional Review Board Human Subject’s Committee approved all study protocols and all procedures performed with the study’s participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Institution and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. All listed co-authors are aware that this manuscript is being submitted to the International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by Grant R21DK117466 from the National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). The authors gratefully acknowledge support from the Minnesota Population Center (P2C HD041023 & T32HD095134) funded through a grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). This work was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.