This paper examines whether the relationship between parenting style and adolescent depressive symptoms, smoking, and academic grades varies according to ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status. Four parenting styles are distinguished, based on patterns of parent-adolescent decision making: autocratic (parents decide), authoritative (joint process but parents decide), permissive (joint process but adolescent decides), and unengaged (adolescent decides). The sample included 3993 15-year-old White, Hispanic, African-American, and Asian adolescents. Results are generally consistent with previous findings: adolescents with authoritative parents had the best outcomes and those with unengaged parents were least well adjusted, while the permissive and the autocratic styles produced intermediate results. For the most part, this pattern held across ethnic and sociodemographic subgroups. There was one exception, suggesting that the relationship between parenting styles, especially the unengaged style, and depressive symptoms may vary according to gender and ethnicity. More research is needed to replicate and explain this pattern in terms of ecological factors, cultural norms, and socialization goals and practices.

Much more teen smoking cessation research is needed, but teen smoking cessation programming is effective, and the present study provides a framework to move forward.

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LGB communities, especially lesbian and bisexual women, appear to be effectively targeted by tobacco industry marketing activities. Strategies to limit tobacco industry marketing, and increase individuals' resistance to marketing, may be critical to reducing smoking among LGB populations.

Objective-To examine the relationship between community measures of youth access to alcohol, enforcement of possession laws, and the frequency of youth alcohol use and related problems in those communities.Design-Multi-level analysis of a cross-sectional student survey. Setting: Ninety-two communities in Oregon.Participants-Students in grade 11 (ages 16-17) in each participating community.Main outcome measures-Thirty-day frequency of alcohol use, binge drinking, use of alcohol at school, and drinking and driving.Results-The rate of illegal merchant sales in the communities directly related to all four alcohol-use outcomes. There was also evidence that communities with higher minor in possession law enforcement had lower rates of alcohol use and binge drinking. The use of various sources in a community expanded and contracted somewhat depending on levels of access and enforcement.Conclusions-This evidence provides much needed empirical support for the potential utility of local efforts to invest in increasing access control and possession enforcement.

This article summarizes the theoretical basis for targeted prevention programs as they apply to different high-risk groups. We explain the advantages and disadvantages of different definitions of risk and discuss strategies for preventing drug use related problems in high-risk youth. Productive prevention programs for many at-risk groups share similar components, including those that address motivation, skills, and decision making. We present key aspects of these three components and link them to theories in clinical psychology, social psychology, sociology, and chemical dependence treatment. Among a total of 29 promising targeted prevention programs, we describe examples of empirically evaluated, intensive interventions that have made a positive impact on the attitudes and behavior of multiple problem youth. Incorporating the perspectives of multiple disciplines appears essential for progress in drug abuse and other problem behavior prevention.

Understanding the psychosocial factors that predict cigarette smoking onset in young people is of crucial importance for prevention efforts. The present study examined prospective psychosocial predictors of smoking in a three‐wave longitudinal data set. Similar in design to an earlier study by Chassin, Presson, Sherman, Corty, and Olshavsky (1984), the present study replicated their work, and extended it by (a) using composite predictors derived from exploratory factor analysis, (b) including prior behavior as a predictor, (c) using a design extended over three waves of data collection, and (d) using a sample composed primarily of urban teenagers. Subjects were 3295 7th‐grade students at the beginning of the study. The subjects completed a questionnaire containing items tapping cigarette smoking behavior and psychosocial items that have previously been shown to predict smoking behavior. Forty‐one psychosocial items on the Wave 1 (initial) questionnaire were factor analyzed, and five factors were retained. Subscale scores were constructed based on these factors and were used as predictors. Regression analyses were performed using the subscales and pretest smoking frequency to predict a continuous measure of smoking, and discriminant analyses were performed to predict transitions between qualitative levels of smoking. Prior smoking behavior was the most important predictor of future smoking. Four of the subscales, Social Disapproval, Risk Taking/Rebelliousness, Perceived Smoking Prevalence, and Motivation to Comply, were significant predictors. One subscale, Physical Consequences from Smoking, was not predictive of smoking in any of the analyses. The effect sizes cross‐validated well. It is suggested that an integrative model of smoking initiation developed by Flay, d'Avernas, Best, Kersell, and Ryan (1983) best summarizes the results of the present study.