Duration-Weighted Exposure to Neighborhood Disadvantage and Racial-Ethnic Differences in Adolescent Sexual Behavior.

Racial-ethnic disparities in adolescent sexual risk behavior are associated with health disparities during adulthood and are therefore important to understand. Some scholars argue that neighborhood disadvantage induces disparities, yet prior research is mixed. We extend neighborhood-effects research by addressing long-term exposure to neighborhood disadvantage and estimation bias resulting from inclusion of time-varying covariates. Drawing from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study, we compare a point-in-time proximal measure of neighborhood disadvantage with a duration-weighted measure using marginal structural models with inverse probability of treatment weights. Findings indicate that multiracial, non-Hispanic black, and Hispanic youth exhibit significantly higher sexual risk and duration-weighted exposure to neighborhood disadvantage than non-Hispanic white adolescents. Duration-weighted exposure is a better predictor of sexual initiation and number of partners by age 15 than a point-in-time proximal measure of neighborhood disadvantage and accounts for a substantial portion of the race-ethnic differences in sexual risk.

Verbal Ability and Persistent Offending: A Race-Specific Test of Moffitt's Theory.

Theoretical questions linger over the applicability of the verbal ability model to African Americans and the social control theory hypothesis that educational failure mediates the effect of verbal ability on offending patterns. Accordingly, this paper investigates whether verbal ability distinguishes between offending groups within the context of Moffitt's developmental taxonomy. Questions are addressed with longitudinal data spanning childhood through young-adulthood from an ongoing national panel, and multinomial and hierarchical Poisson models (over-dispersed). In multinomial models, low verbal ability predicts membership in a life-course-persistent-oriented group relative to an adolescent-limited-oriented group. Hierarchical models indicate that verbal ability is associated with arrest outcomes among White and African American subjects, with effects consistently operating through educational attainment (high school dropout). The results support Moffitt's hypothesis that verbal deficits distinguish adolescent-limited- and life-course-persistent-oriented groups within race as well as the social control model of verbal ability.

Genes, Parenting, Self-Control, and Criminal Behavior.

Self-control has been found to predict a wide variety of criminal behaviors. In addition, studies have consistently shown that parenting is an important influence on both self-control and offending. However, few studies have examined the role that biological factors may play in moderating the relationship between parenting, self-control, and offending. Using a sample of adolescent males drawn from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 3,610), we explore whether variants of the monoamine oxidase A gene (MAOA) and the dopamine transporter (DAT1) gene interact with parenting to affect self-control and offending. Results reveal that parenting interacts with these genes to influence self-control and offending, and that the parenting-by-gene interaction effect on offending is mediated by self-control. The effects of parenting on self-control and offending are most pronounced for those who carry plasticity alleles for both MAOA and DAT1. Thus, MAOA and DAT1 may be implicated in offending because they increase the negative effects of parenting on self-control. Implications for theory are discussed.

Neighborhoods and racial/ethnic disparities in adolescent sexual risk behavior.

Understanding the determinants of racial/ethnic disparities in adolescent sexual risk behavior is important given its links to the differential risk of teen pregnancy, childbearing, and sexually transmitted infections. This article tests a contextual model that emphasizes the concentration of neighborhood disadvantage in shaping racial/ethnic disparities in sexual risk behavior. We focus on two risk behaviors that are prevalent among Black and Hispanic youth: the initiation of sexual activity in adolescence and the number of sex partners. Using data from the 1997 National Longitudinal Study of Youth (N = 6,985; 48% female; 57% non-Hispanic White) evidence indicates that neighborhood disadvantage--measured by concentrated poverty, unemployment rates, and the proportion of female-headed households--partially explains Black and Hispanic disparities from Whites in the odds of adolescent sexual debut, although the prevalence of female-headed households in neighborhoods appears to be the main driver in this domain. Likewise, accounting for neighborhood disadvantage reduces the Black-White and Hispanic-White disparity in the number of sexual partners, although less so relative to sexual debut. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

Childhood abuse and criminal behavior: testing a general strain theory model.

This article draws on general strain theory (GST) to develop and test a model of the childhood abuse-crime relationship. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health),(1) we find that early childhood physical and sexual abuse are robust predictors of offending in adolescence, for the full sample and in equations disaggregated by gender. GST is partially supported in that the effects of childhood physical abuse on offending for both females and males are mediated by an index of depression symptoms, whereas the effect of sexual abuse among females appears to be mediated largely by closeness to mother. The effect of childhood sexual abuse among males, however, is more robust than among females and it persists despite controls for low self-control, ties to delinquent peers, school attachment, and closeness to mother. Theoretical implications of the findings are discussed.

Gang Membership, Drug Selling, and Violence in Neighborhood Context.

A prominent perspective in the gang literature suggests that gang member involvement in drug selling does not necessarily increase violent behavior. In addition it is unclear from previous research whether neighborhood disadvantage strengthens that relationship. We address those issues by testing hypotheses regarding the confluence of neighborhood disadvantage, gang membership, drug selling, and violent behavior. A three-level hierarchical model is estimated from the first five waves of the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, matched with block-group characteristics from the 2000 U.S. Census. Results indicate that (1) gang members who sell drugs are significantly more violent than gang members that don't sell drugs and drug sellers that don't belong to gangs; (2) drug sellers that don't belong to gangs and gang members who don't sell drugs engage in comparable levels of violence; and (3) an increase in neighborhood disadvantaged intensifies the effect of gang membership on violence, especially among gang members that sell drugs.