Psychosocial Predictors and Consequences of Drag Use: A Developmental Perspective Within a Prospective Study

Abstract

In this review of my prospective research program, I focus on several topics related to psychosocial factors associated with drug involvement across several developmental periods of life. In particular, I address the first three decades of life. To illustrate these processes, I use selected findings from my 16-year prospective study of adolescent and adult development that examine drug use, other problem behaviors, and psychosocial risk and protective factors as both antecedents and outcomes of drug involvement. Specifically, I: (1) summarize risk and protective factors along a developmental continuum; (2) describe my prospective study; (3) discuss sex differences; (4) introduce the notion of general deviance; (5) consider several child to adolescent predictors of drug use; (6) examine several adolescent to young adult predictors of drug use; (7) introduce the notion of multiple risk and protective factors; (8) test several young adult consequences of teenage drug use; and finally (9) evaluate several antecedents and consequences of adult drug use.