The transition from physical sibling abuse to bullying perpetration through trait anger: A longitudinal study.

OBJECTIVES: Experiencing physical sibling abuse is a form of family violence that is common but understudied. While it is often perceived as a normative aspect of sibling relationships, there are apparent behavioral consequences. The current study aims to advance the literature by utilizing the displaced aggression model and I3 theory to longitudinally examine trait anger as a pathway linking physical sibling abuse to bullying perpetration. METHODS: Using data from the Bullying, Sexual, and Dating Violence Trajectories from Early to Late Adolescence in the Midwestern United States, 2008-2013, adolescents (n = 851, M = 14.8 years) completed questionnaires at baseline and were reassessed 6 months later. RESULTS: Results suggested that when adolescents experience physical sibling abuse, they are more likely to engage in bullying perpetration. Mediation analyses indicated that as adolescents were physically abused by a sibling at home, they were more likely to report higher levels of trait anger, which subsequently increased their risk of engaging in bullying perpetration. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that experiencing physical sibling abuse has long-term detrimental consequences, including elicitation of trait anger, subsequently predicting bullying perpetration.

Neighborhood disorder as a predictor of perceptions of firearm access: Examining peers effects.

OBJECTIVE: This study sought to examine the relationship between neighborhood disorder and perceptions of gun access. Further, this study focused on determining whether or not antisocial peer affiliation mediates this relationship. METHODS: The Pathways to Desistance data were analyzed. This is an 11-wave longitudinal study following 1,354 justice-involved youth across seven years post-adjudication. Generalized structural equation modeling was used to assess direct and indirect relationships of interest. RESULTS: Greater levels of neighborhood disorder were associated with increased perceptions of access to guns in the community. Affiliation with antisocial peers significantly mediated this relationship, accounting for about 15 % of this relationship. CONCLUSIONS: Affiliation with antisocial peers may be greater in disordered neighborhoods and they may facilitate access to guns for adolescents living in such communities. Mentoring programs for adolescents living in disordered communities may have some capacity for attenuating this relationship.

Major Depressive Disorder as a Driver of Dual Systems Model Development During Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood Among Justice-Involved Youth: Is Salience Age-Graded?

The dual systems model is a psychological framework centered on differential development of sensation-seeking and impulse control during adolescence and emerging adulthood with implications for understanding antisocial behavior. However, there is a dearth of research which has examined mental illness as a driver of differential development of these constructs. This study examined major depressive disorder as a risk factor for elevated sensation-seeking and diminished impulse control and tested to determine whether the salience differed by age. The Pathways to Desistance data were analyzed. Mixed effects models examined the direct effect of major depressive disorder on dual systems outcomes and test for moderation by age. Findings indicated that major depressive disorder at baseline was associated with increased sensation-seeking and diminished impulse control. Relationships did not differ in salience based on age. Results suggest that treatment effective for addressing depression may have relevance for mitigating the impact of the disorder on cognition.

Understanding the Impact of Deviant Peer Association on Dual Systems Model Development: Testing the Moderating Role of ADHD.

ABSTRACT: Recent research has indicated that deviant peers may play a role in cognitive development. This is particularly the case for the dual systems model, a key framework for understanding engagement in antisocial behavior during adolescence and emerging adulthood. However, limited research has examined how preexisting mental health concerns may moderate these relationships. This study used the Pathways to Desistance data to examine attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as a moderator of the relationships between deviant peer association and dual systems model constructs. Generalized estimating equations were used to test these relationships. Results indicated that deviant peer association and the presence of ADHD both predicted increased sensation-seeking and lower impulse control. ADHD significantly moderated the relationship between deviant peer association and impulse control, indicating a weaker impact of deviant peer association on impulse control among participants with ADHD. No significant interaction was observed for the relationship between deviant peer association and sensation-seeking.

Relative impacts of a virtual cooking and nutrition program for children and families.

Among the many factors contributing to increased consumption of ultraprocessed foods, a societal decline in cooking skills is a barrier to achieving healthy dietary patterns among children and adolescents. The current study assessed the effectiveness of a healthy cooking program, its geographic reach, and whether program format (child only, in-person format vs. family-based, virtual format) influenced outcomes. This was a quasi-experimental comparison study using youths' (8-18 years old) pre-post surveys, paired t-tests, propensity score matching, and hot spot analysis. Children participated in one of two healthy cooking programs: Flint Kids Cook (FKC)] in-person or [Flint Families Cook (FFC) virtual. FKC was facilitated inside a farmers' market commercial kitchen, whereas FFC took place virtually, in families' homes. Youth were eligible to participate in FKC if they were age 8-18 years, spoke English, and had not participated in a prior session. Families were eligible to participate in FFC if they had a child(ren) age 8-18 years, spoke English, and had not participated in a prior session of FKC or FFC. A total of 246 children (152 FKC; 94 FFC) completed assessments. FFC participants reported improved cooking self-efficacy (p < 0.001), intake of vegetables (p = 0.04), health-related quality of life (HRQoL; p = 0.01), and physical functioning (p < 0.001). Geographic reach, cooking self-efficacy, attitude towards cooking, and HRQoL exit scores did not differ between virtual or in-person programs. However, virtual program participants reported higher intake of whole grains (p = 0.02) and total fruits (p = 0.02) than in-person participants. Differences in outcomes based on program format included notable dietary improvements among youth who participated in the family-based virtual program.

Major depressive disorder as a moderator of the relationship between heavy-episodic drinking and anxiety symptoms.

BACKGROUND: Major depressive disorder and heavy-episodic drinking are risk factors for the development of anxiety. However, the interactive effect between these constructs for predicting anxiety symptoms remains understudied. AIMS: This study sought to examine how major depressive disorder moderates the relationship between heavy-episodic drinking frequency and the development of anxiety symptoms in adolescence and emerging adulthood among a sample of justice-involved youth, with expectations that the salience of this relationship may differ based on life-course stage. METHODS: Several waves of the Pathways to Desistance study were analyzed. Poisson regression with robust standard errors was used to test the direct and interactive effects of major depressive disorder and heavy-episodic drinking frequency on anxiety symptoms at follow-up in adolescence and emerging adulthood separately. RESULTS: Results indicated that there was a significant negative interaction between major depressive disorder and heavy-episodic drinking frequency for predicting anxiety scores in both adolescence and emerging adulthood, though the results for adolescence were more robust. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest youth without major depressive disorder that engage in heavy-episodic drinking may be a priority population for treating anxiety issues, but that ceiling effects may limit the impact of the behavior on anxiety on youth with major depressive disorder.

Understanding the link between alcohol dependence and victimisation risk: Is risk explained by peers or alcohol behaviours?

BACKGROUND: Alcohol dependence is a risk factor for experiencing victimisation, but little is known about how peer and behavioural mechanisms may explain this relationship. AIMS: To test deviant peer association and/or heavy-episodic drinking frequency as mediators between alcohol dependence and risk for being victimised. METHODS: The Pathways to Desistance data were analysed. Generalised structural equation modelling was used to determine whether either or both of the hypothesised pathways significantly mediated the relationship between alcohol dependence and victimisation. RESULTS: Alcohol dependence at recruitment (age 14-17) was associated with higher odds of being a victim of some form of violence in Wave 3 (age x-y). This relationship was significantly mediated by deviant peer association but not heavy-episodic drinking frequency between Waves 2 and 3. CONCLUSIONS: These findings add knowledge about the mechanism of a link between early alcohol dependence and later violent victimisation among young offenders. They suggest that more focus on reducing delinquent peer association, or reducing its impact, is crucial to reducing further harms to these young people, in turn possibly affecting continuing substance use and reoffending risks. Peer mentoring programmes help to provide prosocial modelling and reduce deviant peer ties in some circumstances, and these findings suggest that the next step should be their evaluation specifically among justice-involved young people with alcohol dependence. Providing additional funding and/or opportunities for involvement in such mentoring programmes may help to reduce the public health and financial costs associated with alcohol dependence in the juvenile justice system.

ADHD as a Predictor of Quicker Time to Violent Recidivism and a Moderator of the Exposure to Violence-Violent Recidivism Relationship.

Research on the role that attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) plays as a moderator of the relationship between exposure to violence and violent recidivism is limited. The Pathways to Desistance data were analyzed to examine these relationships. Survival analysis was used to examine ADHD as a risk factor predicting time to violent recidivism. Cox-proportional hazard modeling was used to assess the impact of ADHD on violent recidivism risk and examine ADHD as a moderator of the relationship between exposure to violence and violent recidivism. Results indicated that ADHD predicted quicker time to recidivism. The effect of witnessed violence was significantly weaker for participants with ADHD at baseline than those without ADHD at baseline. The direct effect of ADHD diagnosis at baseline on violent recidivism risk was only significant when the hypothesized interaction terms were included in the model. These findings suggest that individuals with ADHD may be less vulnerable to the impact of witnessing violence on their own risk for perpetrating violence. Effective targeting of treatment should be understood within this context.

The Effects of Neighborhood Disorder on Polydrug Use: Examining Depressive Symptoms and Deviant Peer Association as Mediating Mechanisms.

Neighborhood disorder is a risk factor for substance use, but research is limited with regard to the effect of such disorder on polydrug use. Further, research on potential mechanisms underlying this relationship is similarly limited. The current study examined the direct effect of neighborhood disorder on drug use variety and examined deviant peer association and depressive symptoms as mediators among a sample of justice-involved youth. The first three waves of the Pathways to Desistance study were analyzed. Generalized structural equation modeling was used to test for direct and indirect effects of interest. A bootstrap resampling process was used to compute standard errors and significance of hypothesized mediation effects. Findings indicated that greater levels of neighborhood disorder were associated with increased drug use variety. This effect was attenuated by 15% when mediating pathways were included in the model. Only deviant peer association significantly mediated this relationship and accounted for the majority of the total mediating effect. These results indicated that justice-involved youth exposed to neighborhood disorder are at elevated risk for polydrug use and that increased deviant peer association helps to explain this relationship.

Establishing the Relative Accuracy of Using City Directories as Proxies to Define and Reconstruct Historical Alcohol Environments.

OBJECTIVE: Research on alcohol environments has established that poorer and minoritized communities are frequently overburdened by off-premise outlets (e.g., liquor stores). These outlets have more associated harms, including increased alcohol consumption and crime rates. Little, if any, research has shown how these socio-spatial disparities in exposure have grown or shifted over time, and no studies have established a method for re-creating historical alcohol environments. METHOD: Our results suggest that in our study city of Flint, MI, disparities in the alcohol environment have narrowed since 1950. Although liquor stores are still more likely to be located in poorer and more heavily African American neighborhoods, the pattern has become insignificant over time. Furthermore, the number of alcohol outlets per capita has declined. Thus, although the city remains more overburdened with alcohol outlets than its suburbs, the disparity has shrunk. CONCLUSIONS: This work has implications for those working in alcohol prevention and policy, as well as in urban planning. Practitioners and researchers can use this method to model alcohol availability over time in their own communities, which helps better inform the discussion on disparities experienced in poor and minoritized neighborhoods.

Antisocial personality disorder as a predictor of polydrug use: a longitudinal study of the dual mediating roles of deviant peer association and self-control among juvenile offenders.

BACKGROUND: Antisocial personality disorder (APD) has been linked to increased risk for polydrug use (PU). However, there is a dearth of research focusing on the mechanisms underlying this risk. AIMS: To examine the relationship between APD and PU; to test for the mediating effects of deviant peer association (DVA) and self-control in this relationship; to determine if the magnitudes of observed mediation effects are equivalent. METHODS: The Pathways to Desistance data were analyzed. Generalized structural equation modeling tested for direct and mediating relationships. Mediation effect equivalence was tested using a Clogg Z test. RESULTS: Antisocial personality disorder was associated with increased drug use heterogeneity (coefficient = 0.479; CI = 0.107-0.851). This was significantly mediated by self-control and DVA. The magnitude of the mediation was significantly stronger for the self-control path (self-control coefficient = 0.233; CI = 0.044-0.422; DVA coefficient = 0.134; CI = 0.028-0.241). CONCLUSION: While both self-control and DVA were found to be important for explaining PU in APD, it may be beneficial to focus on self-control to address this problem.

Linking Historical Discriminatory Housing Patterns to the Contemporary Alcohol Environment.

Research on alcohol outlet density consistently shows greater disparities in exposure in disinvested communities. Likewise, structural racism via discriminatory housing practices has created many of the issues that beset contemporary disinvested neighborhoods. Little work, however, has examined the relationship between housing practices and alcohol outlet disparities. The central premise of our work is that these discriminatory and inequitable practices create distinctions in the alcohol environment, and that such disparities have implications for work on alcohol policy. Here we link alcohol outlet density with a spatial database examining redlining, blockbusting, and gentrification in Baltimore, Maryland, and Flint, Michigan (two cities with common experiences of urban disinvestment over the last 50 years). Standard measures are used to account for the impacts of neighborhood racial, socioeconomic, and housing composition in a multilevel model. Our findings highlight that gentrification and redlining are strongly associated with alcohol outlet density, while blockbusting is not. Gentrification and redlining also frequently co-occur in inner-urban areas, while the more suburban phenomenon of blockbusting rarely overlaps with either. These findings further contextualize nascent work on structural racism in housing that illustrates important disparities along the lines of these distinct practices. Future work should consider how legacy impacts of discriminatory housing patterns impact our communities today.

Using trajectory modeling of spatio-temporal trends to illustrate disparities in COVID-19 death in flint and Genesee County, Michigan.

COVID-19's rapid onset left many public health entities scrambling. But establishing community-academic partnerships to digest data and create advocacy steps offers an opportunity to link research to action. Here we document disparities in COVID-19 death uncovered during a collaboration between a health department and university research center. We geocoded COVID-19 deaths in Genesee County, Michigan, to model clusters during two waves in spring and fall 2020. We then aggregated these deaths to census block groups, where group-based trajectory modeling identified latent patterns of change and continuity. Linking with socioeconomic data, we identified the most affected communities. We discovered a geographic and racial gap in COVID-19 deaths during the first wave, largely eliminated during the second. Our partnership generated added and immediate value for community partners, including around prevention, testing, treatment, and vaccination. Our identification of the aforementioned racial disparity helped our community nearly eliminate disparities during the second wave.

Validating a geospatial healthfulness index with self-reported chronic disease and health outcomes.

Leveraging community engagement from past research may yield frameworks on which to build new inquiries. We previously integrated community voice into the development of a healthfulness index to increase awareness of social determinants of health in the built environment and inform deployment of public health interventions in the Flint (Michigan, USA) Center for Health Equity Solutions. Here we combine the healthfulness index with self-reported chronic disease and health outcomes (n = 12,279) from a community-based healthcare entity, the Genesee Health Plan. The healthfulness index purports to predict how health-promoting a neighborhood is based on many spatially varying characteristics; by linking our health plan data to this index, we validate the effectiveness of the healthfulness index. After geocoding all enrollees and joining their healthfulness scores, we conducted a series of logistic regressions to compare the relationship between self-reported outcomes and healthfulness. Matching the two intervention projects of our center (revolving around healthy eating & physical activity in project 1 and mental health sustainment & substance use prevention in project 2), our analyses also focused on classes of outcomes related to a) cardiovascular disease and b) mental health. In only select cases, higher (better) healthfulness scores from each project were independently associated with better cardiovascular and mental health outcomes, controlling for age, race, and sex. Generally, however, healthfulness did not add predictive strength to the association between health and sociodemographic covariates. Even so, the use of composite healthfulness indices to describe the health-promoting or degrading qualities of a neighborhood could be valuable in identifying differences in health outcomes. Future researchers could further explore healthcare claims datasets to increase understanding of the links between healthfulness and health outcomes. This and future work will be valuable in advocacy toward additional healthfulness indices to aid other communities in enriching understanding between the built environment and health.

Understanding mechanisms underlying the relationship between antisocial personality disorder and substance-impaired driving among young adults involved with the justice system as minors.

INTRODUCTION: Antisocial personality disorder is a risk factor associated with increased risk for substance-impaired driving. While past research has focused on identifying prevalence rates for the disorder among substance-impaired drivers, there is a dearth of research focused on identifying the mechanisms by which the disorder actually functions to increase risk for the behavior among young adults who were formerly adjudicated for a serious offense. There are cognitive, affective, and social mechanisms that may help to explain this relationship. METHOD: Impulse control, hostility, and deviant peer association are examined as mechanisms that explain the relationship in each of these domains, respectively. The Pathways to Desistance data were utilized in analyses, comprising the responses of 1,354 youth who were adjudicated for a serious offense just prior to baseline measurements. Generalized structural equation modeling was used to examine the direct effects of antisocial personality disorder on substance-impaired driving risk and the hypothesized mechanism variables were then included in the model to determine which of them provided significant pathways through which the main relationship operated. RESULTS: Results indicated that meeting criteria for a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder was associated with increased risk of substance-impaired driving at follow-up. This relationship was attenuated to non-significance upon inclusion of the mechanism variables and reduced in magnitude by 20%. This attenuation was due almost entirely to impulse control. Practical Applications: This provides indication that intervention for substance-impaired driving offenders with antisocial personality disorder may be most effective when structured around improving impulse control for young adults who were previously involved with the juvenile/criminal justice system.

Borderline Personality Disorder as a Predictor of Drug Use Variety: Cognitive Vs. Affective Mechanisms.

Borderline personality disorder has been identified as a risk factor for polydrug use. Despite this, there remains a lack of understanding of which characteristics of the disorder provide the mechanisms for this relationship. This study examined a set of constructs as mechanisms explaining the borderline personality disorder-polydrug use relationship that are divided into affective and cognitive categories. The Pathways to Desistance data were used in analyses. Generalized structural equation modeling was used to examine the direct relationship between borderline personality disorder and test for attenuation of this direct effect. A bootstrap resampling process was used to estimate standard errors utilized to specify specific and total indirect effects of mechanism variables and their significance level. Results indicated that greater symptom severity of borderline personality disorder predicted increased drug use variety. This relationship was attenuated by 70% when hypothesized mechanisms were included and became nonsignificant. It appeared that this attenuation was mainly due to sensation-seeking. Findings indicate that interventions for individuals suffering from borderline personality disorder with polydrug use issues may find utility in structuring programming around mitigating sensation-seeking.

Trajectory Modeling of Spatio-Temporal Trends in COVID-19 Incidence in Flint and Genesee County, Michigan.

PURPOSE: The establishment of community-academic partnerships to digest data and create actionable policy and advocacy steps is of continuing importance. In this paper, we document COVID-19 racial and geographic disparities uncovered via a collaboration between a local health department and university research center. METHODS: We leverage individual level data for all COVID-19 cases aggregated to the census block group level, where group-based trajectory modeling was employed to identify latent patterns of change and continuity in COVID-19 diagnoses. RESULTS: Linking with socioeconomic data from the census, we identified the types of communities most heavily affected by each of Michigan's two waves (in spring and fall of 2020). This includes a geographic and racial gap in COVID-19 cases during the first wave, which is largely eliminated during the second wave. CONCLUSIONS: Our work has been extremely valuable for community partners, informing community-level response toward testing, treatment, and vaccination. In particular, identifying and conducting advocacy on the sizeable racial disparity in COVID-19 cases during the first wave in spring 2020 helped our community nearly eliminate disparities throughout the second wave in fall 2020.

Exposure to Violence Variety as a Risk Factor for Cigarette Smoking: Relevance of Sensation-Seeking and Impulsivity as Mediators.

BACKGROUND: Prior research has indicated that exposure to violence is a risk factor associated with cigarette smoking. However, the relevance of variety of exposure for predicting this outcome has remained underexplored. This is problematic, as increased variety of exposure may represent a measure of severity of trauma exposure with less recall bias than other measures. Further, related constructs of sensation-seeking and impulsivity have yet to be investigated as mediators of this relationship. It is predicted that increased variety of exposure to violence results in dysfunctional variation in these constructs, leading to increased daily cigarette use. METHODS: The present study utilizes data from the first three waves of the Pathways to Desistance study to examine these relationships. Generalized structural equation modeling is used to identify direct and indirect effects of interest. A bootstrap resampling process was used to compute normalized standard errors so that indirect effects were not biased. RESULTS: Results indicated that lifetime exposure to violence variety prior to baseline predicted increased daily cigarette use at follow-up. Neither sensation-seeking nor impulsivity were significant mediators when both constructs were included in the model, but impulsivity emerged as a significant mediator when separate mediation models were estimated for each construct. CONCLUSIONS: The findings indicate the potential utility of screening for variety of exposure to violence to determine adolescents who may be at-risk for high frequency cigarette smoking. Programming focused on impulsivity may play a role in addressing cigarette smoking issues stemming from exposure to violence.

The relevance of post-traumatic stress disorder as a moderator of the relationship between experience of violent or sexual assault and opioid use in adulthood.

BACKGROUND: Past research has indicated that individuals suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may demonstrate increased sensitivity to stress exposure following onset of the disorder. Thus, having PTSD may amplify the effects of subsequent stressors. This has been found to be relevant in some forms of substance use but relationships between PTSD, new stress and opioid use specifically has not been examined. AIMS: To explore interactions between PTSD, new victimisation and opioid use and test the hypothesis that PTSD will moderate any victimisation-opioid use relationship. METHODS: The pathways to desistance data were used in analyses. A series of logistic regression models were used to test both direct effects of victimisation and PTSD on opioid use and interactions between them. RESULTS: The sample was comprised of a male majority (male N = 1,170; female N = 184). Results indicated that neither PTSD nor victimisation were significant predictors of opioid use. PTSD was found to moderate the relationship between victimisation and opioid use in the hypothesised manner. CONCLUSIONS: There may be clinical implications of these results relating to both inpatient and outpatient treatment. Regular trauma screening, additional victims' services and trauma-informed care may help to reduce the risk of opioid use among individuals suffering from PTSD.

Relevance of the dual systems model for predicting drug/alcohol dependence in early adulthood among previously adjudicated young adults.

BACKGROUND: While the dual system model has been found to have utility for predicting drug use, examinations have yet to extend to the clinically relevant issue of drug/alcohol dependence. This study sought to provide better understanding of how the dual systems model constructs (impulse control and sensation-seeking) predicted risk for drug/alcohol dependence in early adulthood among a sample of young adults who were adjudicated for a serious offense as minors. METHODS: Data from several waves of the Pathways to Desistance data were used in analyses. Logistic regression was used to model covariate effects on drug/alcohol dependence risk. RESULTS: Findings indicated that lower impulse control predicted increased odds of meeting criteria for drug/alcohol dependence in early adulthood. Sensation-seeking was not a significant predictor of drug/alcohol dependence risk at follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: Lower impulse control was predictive of drug/alcohol dependence risk. Prevention programming should seek to boost impulse control during adolescence to mitigate this risk and treatment programming should focus on impulse control training in order to treat drug/alcohol dependence in inpatient and outpatient contexts.