Relation of peer effects and school climate to substance use among Asian American adolescents

Abstract

Using a nationally representative, longitudinal sample of Asian American late adolescents/ young adults (ages 18e26), this article investigates the link between peer effects, school climate, on the one hand, and substance use, which includes tobacco, alcohol, and other illicit mood altering substance. The sample (N ¼ 1585) is drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Waves I and III). The study is set to empirically test premises of generational, social capital and stage-environment fit theories. The exploratory variables include individual-level (immigrant generation status, ethnic origin, coethnic and co-generational peers e peers from the same immigrant generation) as well as school-level measures (average school socio-economic status and school climate). Multilevel modeling (logistic and negative binomial regression) was used to estimate substance use. Results indicate that preference for co-generational friends is inversely associated with frequency of cannabis and other illicit drug use and preference for coethnic peers is inversely associated with other illicit drug use. We also find that school climate is a strong and negative predictor of frequency of cannabis and other illicit drug use as well as of heavy episodic drinking. In terms of policy, these findings suggest that Asian American students should benefit from co-ethnic and co-generational peer networks in schools and, above all, from improving school climate.

Binge drinking: Health impact, prevalence, correlates and interventions

“…In contrast, the better the climate at school or at class level (defined as high quality student-student and studentteacher relationships) the lower the binge drinking frequency (Ryabov, 2015;Tomczyk et al, 2015). Moreover, a high prevalence of drinkers in the community, neighbourhood norms that were more accepting of binge drinking, or seeing others drinking in public were associated with individual binge drinking (Chauhan, Ahern, Galea, & Keyes, 2016;Song et al, 2012).…”

Physical violence and vulnerable adolescents: the roles of school climate and presence of similar peers

“…It is constructed as an aggregate of six questions that tap different aspects of school climate. The detailed description of the index is given in Table 1. Parents' income and education were included in an attempt to control for family SES, a factor often linked to adolescent academic achievement (Crosnoe et al, 2002;Ryabov, 2015). Those cases with negative income were recoded as zeros because reports of negative household income, as opposed to individual income, may indicate debt and, thus, differ in nature from the income measure.…”

School‐level factors associated with obesity: A systematic review of longitudinal studies

“…Future studies are needed to identify additional aspects of the school context and environment that may contribute to the risk of obesity throughout the life course. For example, “school climate (eg, feeling close to people at school or perceiving that teachers treat students fairly)” has been longitudinally associated with other health behaviours, such as substance use and associated with BMI percentiles in a smaller cross‐sectional study . Since school plays an important role in children's and adolescents' developing attitudes and values related to health, it would be worth exploring whether such factors have a long‐term association with obesity and can be promoted through interventions.…”