Research & Resources

In this study, researchers aimed to describe changes in childhood familiarity with substances and to test whether baseline familiarity predicts early adolescent substance use. They analyzed a sample of 3,754 females and 4,142 males, ages 9–10 at baseline, from the Substance Use Module of the longitudinal cohort study, Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study (ABCD Study®). Unconditional time models indicated that age significantly predicted familiarity with approximately 3.59 substances at 9 years, increasing to approximately 7.43 substances at 13 years. Family history, home use, peer use, and neighborhood availability predicted familiarity, accounting for 1% of additional variance. For each additional familiar substance at baseline, adjusted odds of future use increased 1.28 times. Overall, familiarity increased with age (age being the most predictive indicator), and familiarity at ages 9–10 predicted early adolescent substance use. Researchers suggested that these results point to an opportunity for an easily implemented screening tool for at-risk youth.

This paper, “Substance familiarity in middle childhood and adolescent substance use,” was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and published in the journal Drug and alcohol dependence.