Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-qxdb6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T08:30:08.608Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Exposure to peer deviance during childhood and risk for drug abuse: a Swedish national co-relative control study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 September 2014

K. S. Kendler ,
H. Ohlsson ,
B. Mezuk ,
K. Sundquist  and
J. Sundquist
K. S. Kendler*
Affiliation:
Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA Department of Human and Molecular Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA
H. Ohlsson
Affiliation:
Center for Primary Health Care Research, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden
B. Mezuk
Affiliation:
Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA Department of Family Medicine and Population Health, Division of Epidemiology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA
K. Sundquist
Affiliation:
Center for Primary Health Care Research, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden Stanford Prevention Research Center, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
J. Sundquist
Affiliation:
Center for Primary Health Care Research, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden Stanford Prevention Research Center, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
*
*Address for correspondence: K. S. Kendler, M.D., Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics of VCU, Box 980126, Richmond, VA 23298-0126, USA. (Email: kendler@vcu.edu)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Background.

Peer deviance (PD) is associated with risk for drug abuse (DA). Is this association causal?

Method.

DA was recorded in official records. PD was defined as the percentage of peers residing in small communities with future DA registrations. We examined offspring in families whose community PD changed when the offspring was 0–15 years of age and then examined families where cousins or siblings differed in their years of exposure to low or high PD communities.

Results.

The duration of exposure to PD was strongly associated with future DA. Co-relative analyses for families whose exposure to PD declined suggested that the PD–DA association was largely non-causal. Within full-sibling pairs in such families, the length of exposure to low PD environments was unrelated to risk for DA. By contrast, co-relative analyses in families where exposure to PD increased over time indicated that the PD–DA association was largely causal. In such families, siblings who differed in the duration of their exposure to high PD differed in their risk for subsequent DA. These results were replicated in families whose PD changed because they moved or because of changes in the community in which they resided.

Conclusions.

Within families whose social environment is improving over time, the association between PD exposure and offspring DA outcomes is not causal but is due to familial confounding. Within families whose social environment is deteriorating, the PD–DA association seems to be largely causal. Our measure of PD may also reflect broader aspects of the community environment beyond peers.

Keywords

Drug abuseenvironmental transmissionepidemiologypeer devianceSweden
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , March 2015 , pp. 855 - 864
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, M, Donohue, WA, Griffin, A, Ryan, D, Turner, MM (2003). Comparing the influence of parents and peers on the choice to use drugs. Criminal Justice and Behavior 30, 163–186.Google Scholar
Andrews, JA, Tildesley, E, Hops, H, Li, F (2002). The influence of peers on young adult substance use. Health Psychology 21, 349–357.Google Scholar
APA (1987). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Revised 3rd edn. American Psychiatric Association: Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Dishion, TJ, Andrews, DW, Crosby, L (1995). Antisocial boys and their friends in early adolescence: relationship characteristics, quality, and interactional process. Child Development 66, 139–151.Google Scholar
Dishion, TJ, Bullock, BM, Granic, I (2002). Pragmatism in modeling peer influence: dynamics, outcomes, and change processes. Developmental Psychopathology 14, 969–981.Google Scholar
Dishion, TJ, Patterson, GR, Griesler, PC (1994). Peers adaption in the development of antisocial behavior: a confluence model. In Aggressive Behavior: Current Perspectives (ed. Huesmann, L. R.), pp. 61–95. Springer: New York.Google Scholar
Eiser, JR, Morgan, M, Gammage, P, Brooks, N, Kirby, R (1991). Adolescent health behaviour and similarity-attraction: friends share smoking habits (really), but much else besides. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 30 (Pt 4), 339–348.Google Scholar
Fergusson, DM, Horwood, LJ (1999). Prospective childhood predictors of deviant peer affiliations in adolescence. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines 40, 581–592.Google Scholar
Gannetian, LA, Sciandra, M, Sanbonmatsu, L, Ludwig, J, Katz, LF, Duncan, GJ, Kling, JR, Kessler, RC (2012). The long-term effects of moving to opportunity on youth outcomes. Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research 14, 137–168.Google Scholar
Gatti, U, Tremblay, RE, Vitaro, F, McDuff, P (2005). Youth gangs, delinquency and drug use: a test of the selection, facilitation, and enhancement hypotheses. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 46, 1178–1190.Google Scholar
Granic, I, Patterson, GR (2006). Toward a comprehensive model of antisocial development: a dynamic systems approach. Psychological Review 113, 101–131.Google Scholar
Harris, JR (2002). The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do. Touchstone/Simon & Schuster: New York, NY.Google Scholar
Haveman, R, Wolfe, B, Spaulding, J (1991). Childhood events and circumstances influencing high school completion. Demography 28, 133–157.Google Scholar
Hawkins, JD, Herrenkohl, T, Farrington, DP, Brewer, D, Catalano, RF, Harachi, TW (1998). A review of predictors of youth violence. In Serious and Violent Juvenile Offenders: Risk Factors and Successful Interventions (ed. Loeber, R. and Farrington, D. P.), pp. 106–146. Sage Publications, Inc.: London.Google Scholar
Hibell, B, Guttormsson, U, Ahlstrom, S, Balakireva, O, Bjarnason, T, Kokkevi, A, Kraus, L (2007). The 2007 ESPAD Report: Substance Use Among Students in 35 European Countries. The Swedish Council for Information on Alcohol and Other Drugs (CAN): Sweden.Google Scholar
Kandel, D (1978). Homophily, selection and socialization in adolescent friendships. American Journal of Sociology 84, 427–436.Google Scholar
Kandel, DB (1985). On processes of peer influences in adolescent drug use: a developmental perspective. Advances in Alcohol and Substance Abuse 4, 139–163.Google Scholar
Kandel, DB (1996). The parental and peer contexts of adolescent deviance: an algebra of interpersonal influences. Journal of Drug Issues 26, 289–315.Google Scholar
Kendler, KS, Jacobson, KC, Gardner, CO, Gillespie, NA, Aggen, SH, Prescott, CA (2007). Creating a social world: a developmental study of peer deviance. Archives of General Psychiatry 64, 958–965.Google Scholar
Kendler, KS, Jacobson, KC, Prescott, CA, Neale, MC (2003). Specificity of genetic and environmental risk factors for use and abuse/dependence of cannabis, cocaine, hallucinogens, sedatives, stimulants, and opiates in male twins. American Journal of Psychiatry 160, 687–695.Google Scholar
Kendler, KS, Ohlsson, H, Sundquist, K, Sundquist, J (2014). Peer deviance, parental divorce, and genetic risk in the prediction of drug abuse in a nationwide Swedish sample: evidence of environment-environment and gene-environment interaction. Journal of the American Medical Association. Psychiatry 71, 439–445.Google Scholar
Kendler, KS, Sundquist, K, Ohlsson, H, Palmer, K, Maes, H, Winkleby, MA, Sundquist, J (2012). Genetic and familial-environmental influences on risk for drug abuse: a national Swedish adoption study. Archives of General Psychiatry 69, 690–697.Google Scholar
Kraus, L, Augustin, R, Frischer, M, Kummler, P, Uhl, A, Wiessing, L (2003). Estimating prevalence of problem drug use at national level in countries of the European Union and Norway. Addiction 98, 471–485.Google Scholar
Kringlen, E, Torgersen, S, Cramer, V (2001). A Norwegian psychiatric epidemiological study. American Journal of Psychiatry 158, 1091–1098.Google Scholar
Leventhal, T, Brooks-Gunn, J (2003). Moving to opportunity: an experimental study of neighborhood effects on mental health. American Journal of Public Health 93, 1576–1582.Google Scholar
Oetting, ER, Beauvais, F (1987). Peer cluster theory, socialization characteristics, and adolescent drug use: a path analysis. Journal of Counseling Psychology 34, 205–213.Google Scholar
Petraitis, J, Flay, BR, Miller, TQ, Torpy, EJ, Greiner, B (1998). Illicit substance use among adolescents: a matrix of prospective predictors. Substance Use and Misuse 33, 2561–2604.Google Scholar
Pittman, JF, Bowen, GL (1994). Adolescents on the move: adjustments to family relocation. Youth and Society 26, 69–91.Google Scholar
Sampson, RJ (2008). Moving to inequality: neighborhood effects and experiments meet social structure. American Journal of Sociology 114, 189–231.Google Scholar
Sampson, RJ, Groves, WB (1989). Community structure and crime: testing social-disorganization theory. American Journal of Sociology 94, 774–802.Google Scholar
Sampson, RJ, Raudenbush, SW, Earls, F (1997). Neighborhoods and violent crime: a multilevel study of collective efficacy. Science 277, 918–924.Google Scholar
Sharkey, P, Sampson, RJ (2010). Destination effects: residential mobility and trajectories of adolescent violence in a stratified metropolis. American Society of Criminology 48, 639–681.Google Scholar
Shonkoff, J, Phillips, D (2000). From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development. National Academy Press: Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Snyder, J (2002). Reinforcement and coercion mechanisms in the development of antisocial behavior: peer relationships. In Antisocial Behavior in Children and Adolescents: A Developmental Analysis and Model for Intervention, 1st edn (ed. Reid, J. B., Patterson, G. R. and Snyder, J.), pp. 101–122. American Psychological Association: Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Thornberry, TP, Krohn, MD, Lizotte, AJ, Chard-Wierschem, D (1993). The role of juvenile gangs in facilitating delinquent behavior. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 30, 55–87.Google Scholar
Tsuang, MT, Lyons, MJ, Eisen, SA, Goldberg, J, True, W, Lin, N, Meyer, JM, Toomey, R, Faraone, SV, Eaves, L (1996). Genetic influences on DSM-III-R drug abuse and dependence: a study of 3,372 twin pairs. American Journal of Medical Genetics 67, 473–477.Google Scholar
Wills, TA, Cleary, SD (1999). Peer and adolescent substance use among 6th-9th graders: latent growth analyses of influence versus selection mechanisms. Health Psychology 18, 453–463.Google Scholar
Wills, TA, Dishion, TJ (2004). Temperament and adolescent substance use: a transactional analysis of emerging self-control. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 33, 69–81.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Kendler Supplementary Material

Supplementary Material

Download Kendler Supplementary Material(File)
File 118.8 KB