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Ecological Factors and Adolescent Marijuana Use: Results of a Prospective Study in Santiago, Chile

Purpose: Despite the growing evidence that ecological factors contribute to substance use, the relationship of ecological factors and illicit drugs such as marijuana use is not well understood, particularly among adolescents in Latin America. Guided by social disorganization and social stress theori...

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Autores principales: Delva, Jorge, Lee, Wonhyung, Sanchez, Ninive, Andrade, Fernando H., Grogan-Kaylor, Andrew, Sanhueza, Guillermo, Ho, Michelle
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3987043/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24662965
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph110303443
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author Delva, Jorge
Lee, Wonhyung
Sanchez, Ninive
Andrade, Fernando H.
Grogan-Kaylor, Andrew
Sanhueza, Guillermo
Ho, Michelle
author_facet Delva, Jorge
Lee, Wonhyung
Sanchez, Ninive
Andrade, Fernando H.
Grogan-Kaylor, Andrew
Sanhueza, Guillermo
Ho, Michelle
author_sort Delva, Jorge
collection PubMed
description Purpose: Despite the growing evidence that ecological factors contribute to substance use, the relationship of ecological factors and illicit drugs such as marijuana use is not well understood, particularly among adolescents in Latin America. Guided by social disorganization and social stress theories, we prospectively examined the association of disaggregated neighborhood characteristics with marijuana use among adolescents in Santiago, Chile, and tested if these relationships varied by sex. Methods: Data for this study are from 725 community-dwelling adolescents participating in the Santiago Longitudinal Study, a study of substance using behaviors among urban adolescents in Santiago, Chile. Adolescents completed a two-hour interviewer administered questionnaire with questions about drug use and factors related to drug using behaviors. Results: As the neighborhood levels of drug availability at baseline increased, but not crime or noxious environment, adolescents had higher odds of occasions of marijuana use at follow up, approximately 2 years later (odds ratio [OR] = 1.39; 95% CI = 1.16–1.66), even after controlling for the study’s covariates. No interactions by sex were significant. Discussion: The findings suggest that “poverty”, “crime”, and “drug problems” may not be synonyms and thus can be understood discretely. As Latin American countries re-examine their drug policies, especially those concerning decriminalizing marijuana use, the findings suggest that attempts to reduce adolescent marijuana use in disadvantaged neighborhoods may do best if efforts are concentrated on specific features of the “substance abuse environment”.
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spelling pubmed-39870432014-04-15 Ecological Factors and Adolescent Marijuana Use: Results of a Prospective Study in Santiago, Chile Delva, Jorge Lee, Wonhyung Sanchez, Ninive Andrade, Fernando H. Grogan-Kaylor, Andrew Sanhueza, Guillermo Ho, Michelle Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Purpose: Despite the growing evidence that ecological factors contribute to substance use, the relationship of ecological factors and illicit drugs such as marijuana use is not well understood, particularly among adolescents in Latin America. Guided by social disorganization and social stress theories, we prospectively examined the association of disaggregated neighborhood characteristics with marijuana use among adolescents in Santiago, Chile, and tested if these relationships varied by sex. Methods: Data for this study are from 725 community-dwelling adolescents participating in the Santiago Longitudinal Study, a study of substance using behaviors among urban adolescents in Santiago, Chile. Adolescents completed a two-hour interviewer administered questionnaire with questions about drug use and factors related to drug using behaviors. Results: As the neighborhood levels of drug availability at baseline increased, but not crime or noxious environment, adolescents had higher odds of occasions of marijuana use at follow up, approximately 2 years later (odds ratio [OR] = 1.39; 95% CI = 1.16–1.66), even after controlling for the study’s covariates. No interactions by sex were significant. Discussion: The findings suggest that “poverty”, “crime”, and “drug problems” may not be synonyms and thus can be understood discretely. As Latin American countries re-examine their drug policies, especially those concerning decriminalizing marijuana use, the findings suggest that attempts to reduce adolescent marijuana use in disadvantaged neighborhoods may do best if efforts are concentrated on specific features of the “substance abuse environment”. MDPI 2014-03-21 2014-03 /pmc/articles/PMC3987043/ /pubmed/24662965 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph110303443 Text en © 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Delva, Jorge
Lee, Wonhyung
Sanchez, Ninive
Andrade, Fernando H.
Grogan-Kaylor, Andrew
Sanhueza, Guillermo
Ho, Michelle
Ecological Factors and Adolescent Marijuana Use: Results of a Prospective Study in Santiago, Chile
title Ecological Factors and Adolescent Marijuana Use: Results of a Prospective Study in Santiago, Chile
title_full Ecological Factors and Adolescent Marijuana Use: Results of a Prospective Study in Santiago, Chile
title_fullStr Ecological Factors and Adolescent Marijuana Use: Results of a Prospective Study in Santiago, Chile
title_full_unstemmed Ecological Factors and Adolescent Marijuana Use: Results of a Prospective Study in Santiago, Chile
title_short Ecological Factors and Adolescent Marijuana Use: Results of a Prospective Study in Santiago, Chile
title_sort ecological factors and adolescent marijuana use: results of a prospective study in santiago, chile
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3987043/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24662965
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph110303443
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