Military service and crime: new evidence

BACKGROUND: Evidence indicates that a substantial proportion of military personnel are involved in high-risk and antisocial behaviors that place them at jeopardy for criminal justice system involvement. However, prior research on military service and crime has disproportionately focused on veterans from the Vietnam War era (1955–1975), and has tended to focus on either current or former military members. METHODS: This study employed data from a population-based study (i.e., National Study on Drug Use and Health [NSDUH] between 2002 and 2014). It systematically examines the prevalence of self-reported antisocial behaviors, criminal justice system involvement, and substance abuse among the US civilian population and military service members, including reservists (n = 2206) and those who reported having been separated or retired from military service (n = 20,551). These factors are further examined across the developmental spectrum of adulthood (ages 18–34, 35–49, and 50–64). RESULTS: Results showed that military members were more prone to lifetime arrests and overall substance misuse. However, additional findings emerged suggesting that, while the military population overall seems to be positively associated with higher criminal activity than that found in the civilian population, these findings were based on a specific subgroup of the veteran population. This subgroup is comprised of individuals who likely did not fit in with the military culture and were discharged from the military early in their careers. CONCLUSION: Additional research on identifying this subgroup of military members is encouraged to better concentrate on prevention and treatment measures

Prevalence and correlates of alcohol and tobacco use among pregnant women in the United States: evidence from the NSDUH 2005–2014

Alcohol and tobacco use during pregnancy are among the strongest and most preventable risk factors for adverse neonatal health outcomes, but few developmentally sensitive, population-based studies of this phenomenon have been conducted. To address this gap, the present study examined the prevalence and correlates of alcohol and tobacco use among pregnant adolescents (aged 12–17) and adults (aged 18–44) in the United States. Data were derived from the population-based National Survey of Drug Use and Health (80,498 adolescent and 152,043 adult women) between 2005 and 2014. Findings show disconcerting levels of past-month use among pregnant women with 11.5% of adolescent and 8.7% of adult women using alcohol, and 23.0% of adolescent and 14.9% of adult women using tobacco. Compared to their non-pregnant counterparts, pregnant adolescents were less likely to report past 30-day alcohol use (AOR = 0.52, 95% CI = 0.36–0.76), but more likely to report past 30-day tobacco use (AOR = 2.20, 95% CI = 1.53–3.18). Compared to their non-pregnant adult counterparts, pregnant adults were less likely to report using alcohol (AOR = 0.06, 95% CI = 0.05–0.07) and tobacco (AOR = 0.47, 95% CI = 0.43–0.52). Compared to pregnant abstainers, pregnant women reporting alcohol/tobacco use were more likely to have had a major depressive episode in the past 12 months, report criminal justice system involvement, and endorse comorbid alcohol/tobacco use. Given alcohol and tobacco's deleterious consequences during pregnancy, increased attention to reducing use is critical. Findings suggest that tobacco use is especially problematic for both adolescents and adults and is strongly linked with depression and criminal justice involvement, especially among adults

Trends and correlates of marijuana use among late middle-aged and older adults in the United States, 2002–2014

BACKGROUND: Recent trend studies suggest that marijuana use is on the rise among the general population of adults ages 18 and older in the United States. However, little is known about the trends in marijuana use and marijuana-specific risk/protective factors among American adults during the latter part of adulthood. METHOD: Findings are based on repeated, cross-sectional data collected from late middle-aged (ages 50–64) and older adults (ages 65 and older) surveyed as part of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health between 2002 and 2014. RESULTS: The prevalence of past-year marijuana use among late middle-aged adults increased significantly from a low of 2.95% in 2003 to a high of 9.08% in 2014. Similarly, the prevalence of marijuana use increased significantly among older adults from a low of 0.15% in 2003 to a high of 2.04% in 2014. Notably, the upward trends in marijuana use remained significant even when accounting for sociodemographic, substance use, behavioral, and health-related factors. We also found that decreases in marijuana-specific protective factors were associated with the observed trend changes in marijuana use among late middle-aged and older adults, and observed a weakening of the association between late-middle aged marijuana use and risk propensity, other illicit drug use, and criminal justice system involvement over the course of the study. CONCLUSIONS: Findings from the present study provide robust evidence indicating that marijuana use among older Americans has increased markedly in recent years, with the most evident changes observed between 2008 and 2014

County-Level Economic Changes and Drug Mortality in the United States: Evidence from the Great Recession

We aimed at examining whether county-level economic changes were associated with changes in county-level drug mortality rates since the Great Recession and whether the association is equally distributed across major sociodemographic subgroups. Using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Wide-Ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (2004–2019), combined with census data, we conducted fixed effects analyses by including county-level economic changes as primary exposures and county-level drug-related mortality rates (per 100,000 people) from 2004–2007 (i.e., prior to the recession) to 2008–2011, 2012–2015, and 2016–2019 as an outcome variable based on 1833 counties. Our findings showed that drug mortality rates increased from 13.9 (2004–2007) to 16.0 (2008–2011), 18.0 (2012–2015), and 23.0 (2016–2019). Counties experiencing smaller median household income growth during and/or after the recession were associated with greater increase in drug mortality than counties experiencing larger median household income growth among the total population and all sociodemographic subgroups. Counties experiencing larger increases in unemployment rates and percentage of vacant housing units were associated with greater increase in drug mortality than counties experiencing smaller or no increase in unemployment rates and percentage of vacant housing units among certain sociodemographic subgroups. Findings suggest the importance of local economic contexts in understanding drug mortality risk since the recession. Drug overdose prevention polices need to be formulated by taking local economic changes following a major recession into consideration

Trends in drug offers among adolescents in the United States, 2002–2014

Abstract Background Being offered illicit drugs is a critical factor leading to drug initiation and other psychosocial risk behaviors among adolescents in the United States. However, there exist few studies examining the recent trends in drug offers among adolescents, particularly across racial/ethnic subgroups. The present study examines trends and psychosocial/behavioral correlates of drug offers among adolescents of the three largest racial/ethnic groups. Methods We used data from the 2002–2014 National Survey on Drug Use and Health of adolescents aged 12–17, which include African-American, Hispanic, and White adolescents (n = 199,700) in the U.S. We estimated the prevalence of past-month drug offers by race/ethnicity, and conducted logistic regression analyses to test the significance of the trends and to examine the correlates of drug offers. Results Overall, the prevalence of drug offers decreased significantly from 16.3% in 2002 to 12.3% in 2014, reflecting a 24.5% reduction in the relative proportion of adolescents who were offered drugs. While the decreasing trends were observed in all subgroups (e.g., race/ethnicity), the decreases were more limited among African-American and Hispanic youth than White youth. As a result, while no differences were observed at the outset of the study, a higher proportion of African-American and Hispanic adolescents were offered drugs between 2012 and 2014. Conclusions Findings suggest a general decline in drug offers among adolescents in the U.S., but racial/ethnic differences in prevalence were identified. This underscores the importance of further efforts to understand the racial/ethnic differences in drug offers and suggests the need for culturally-sensitive drug prevention programs

The moderating effect of gender on the relationship between bullying victimization and adolescents' self-rated health: An exploratory study using the Fragile Families and Wellbeing Study

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/153298/1/2019ZhangetalCYSR.pd