An update on the assessment of culture and environment in the ABCD Study®: Emerging literature and protocol updates over three measurement waves

Abstract

Advances in our understanding of risk and resilience factors in adolescent brain health and development increasingly demand a broad set of assessment tools that consider a youth’s peer, family, school, neighborhood, and cultural contexts in addition to neurobiological, genetic, and biomedical information. The Culture and Environment (CE) Workgroup (WG) of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study curates these important components of the protocol throughout ten years of planned data collection. In this report, the CE WG presents an update on the evolution of the ABCD Study® CE protocol since study inception (Zucker et al., 2018), as well as emerging findings that include CE measures. Background and measurement characteristics of instruments present in the study since baseline have already been described in our 2018 report, and therefore are only briefly described here. New measures introduced since baseline are described in more detail. Descriptive statistics on all measures are presented based on a total sample of 11,000+ youth and their caregivers assessed at baseline and the following two years. Psychometric properties of the measures, including longitudinal aspects of the data, are reported, along with considerations for future measurement waves. The CE WG ABCD® components are an essential part of the overall protocol that permits characterization of the unique cultural and social environment within which each developing brain is transactionally embedded.

A practical guide for researchers and reviewers using the ABCD Study and other large longitudinal datasets

“…Before you start quality controlling your data, we also encourage you to consult existing literature that uses ABCD data to see if there are any published guidelines or protocols for your variables of interest. For example, guidelines for working with the imaging (e.g., Chaarani et al, 2021 ; Hagler et al, 2019 ), cognition ( Luciana et al, 2018 ), puberty measures ( Cheng et al, 2021 , Herting et al, 2021 ), assessment of culture and environment ( Gonzalez et al, 2021 ) and substance use behavior ( Lisdahl et al, 2018 ) have been published to date. If you are interested in utilizing the neuroimaging data, readers must first consult release notes and protocol papers for explicit directions on what inclusion/exclusion criteria needs to be applied to some modalities.…”

“…When testing group differences by gender, race, ethnicity, SES, and their intersections, researchers should consider including measures developed from the vantage point of the identified population, including measures that characterize larger systems of inequity. For example, measures such as the Mexican American Cultural Values Scales Modified for youth ( Knight et al, 2010 ); Vancouver Index of Acculturation and Multi-Group Ethnic Identity ( Ryder et al, 2000 ); Perceived Discrimination Scale ( Williams et al, 1997 ); Life Events Scale ( Hoffman et al, 2019a , Hoffman et al, 2019b , Tiet et al, 1998 ); Neighborhood Safety/Crime Survey (from the PhenX Toolkit and adapted from Echeverria et al, 2004 and Mujahid et al, 2007 ); and the School Risk and Protective Factors Survey (derived from the School Social Environment Section in the PhenX Toolkit and adapted from Arthur et al, 2002 and Harter, 2006 ) are all available in the ABCD dataset and can be incorporated to better identify why any observed differences exist and ascertain the structural systems that perpetuate them (see Gonzalez et al, 2021 and Zucker et al, 2018 for more detail on the culture and environment assessments that were selected for inclusion in the ABCD protocol). In addition, if researchers do decide to analyze variables related to race and ethnicity of the sample, it is recommended that they include a thoughtful discussion and interpretation of the findings, to avoid possible negative interpretations of the findings by the readers.…”

Genetic risk of AUDs and childhood impulsivity: Examining the role of parenting and family environment

“…Participants completed the Parental Monitoring Scale which assessed parents' monitoring and knowledge of their children's whereabouts and who their children were spending time with (Gonzalez et al, 2021). The scale consists of a total of five items (e.g., "how often do your parents/guardians know where you are?"…”

“…Participants were asked to complete a subscale of the Child Report of Behavior Inventory (CRPBI; Schaefer, 1965) that measured their perceptions of their caregiver's warmth, acceptance, and responsiveness (e.g., "my caregiver makes me feel better after talking over my worries with him/her" and "my caregiver smiles at me often"). The ABCD study's acceptance subscale utilizes five of the original scale's ten items with the highest factor loadings (Gonzalez et al, 2021). The participants were asked to respond to items related to the perceived acceptance levels of their two primary caregivers.…”

Mediating effect of pubertal stages on the family environment and neurodevelopment: An open-data replication and multiverse analysis of an ABCD Study®

“…However, the measurement of environmental stress (e.g., early life adversities or stressful family environments) has contributed to debates on whether broad characterizations of environmental stressors by researchers meaningfully relate to individual differences of brain-behavior associations ( Smith and Pollak, 2020 ). Understanding the convergence between broad and specific characterizations in large datasets, such as the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study ® , is especially important due to a large number of environmental, demographic and brain measures that are accessible ( Barch et al, 2018 ; Casey et al, 2018 ; Gonzalez et al, 2021 ; Zucker et al, 2018 ). Combining these rich measures with methods that assess reasonable variations, such as multiverse analysis ( Steegen et al, 2016 ), may yield critical insights about the overlap between theoretically valid decisions for future neurodevelopmental research of environmental experiences.…”