Background: The research involved 170 adolescents from Brazil and Ecuador, ages 12 to 19, comprising 87 Brazilians and 83 Ecuadorians, with a gender distribution of 95 females and 75 males. Purpose: Examine the correlation between impulsivity, emotional symptoms, and the use of alcohol and drugs among teenagers in these countries. Methods:…

This study analyzes how emerging adults negotiate their relation to alcohol in the context of declining youth drinking and how this relationship changes over time. The sample consists of longitudinal qualitative interview data (N = 28) with 9 boys and 19 girls aged 15 to 21. The participants were recruited through schools, social media and…

This study examined the associations between excessive alcohol intake during adolescence and neurocognitive functioning in young adulthood and whether these relations varied by sex. Participants were working-class Chilean adolescents (N = 692; M[subscript age] 16.0 years; 54.5% female) who provided frequency of past 30-day bingeing and past-year…

Previous research has demonstrated initiation of alcohol during adolescence has a negative effect on both school attendance and missed instruction due to behavior. Utilizing longitudinal data comprised of primarily Black American youth between ages 11 and 18 (N = 931), both the short-term and long-term effects of alcohol initiation were analyzed…

Self-report questionnaires on alcohol use are commonly used in both research and in clinical work with adolescents, but little is known about how adolescent responders perceive and interpret them. This study explores how adolescents think while responding to two alcohol-related questionnaires. It also investigates whether the instruments can…

High intensity (HI) binge drinking has emerged as a high-risk drinking phenotype in young adult drinkers, yet few studies have evaluated clinically meaningful correlates of HI binge drinking among young adults at risk for co-occurring psychopathologies, such as interpersonal trauma-exposed drinkers. The present study compared three groups (i.e.,…

Background: This paper describes the theory and development of Take it personal! an indicated prevention programme aimed at reducing substance use in individuals with mild intellectual disabilities and borderline intellectual functioning. Method: The process of the development of Take it personal! followed the steps of the Intervention Mapping…

Despite the common perception of a decline over recent decades of adolescents' use of illicit drugs and alcohol, the recent exponential rise in teenage vaping has spotlighted how local and school communities must address this endemic public problem. Since use of illicit substance adversely affects adolescent development, it is imperative that…

Monitoring the Future (MTF) is designed to give such attention to substance use among the nation's youth and adults. It is an investigator-initiated study that originated with, and is conducted by, a team of research professors at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. Since its onset in 1975, MTF has been funded continuously…

This study examined the clinical utility of the Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument--Second Version (MAYSI-2) among African American (AA) incarcerated youth and used White incarcerated youth as a comparison group. Data were analyzed for 314 incarcerated youth (193 AA offenders and 121 White offenders) of ages 13-17 years who were adjudicated…

To identify factors in adolescence that predict the onset of sexual violence in adolescence and young adulthood. Data were analyzed from six survey waves of the longitudinal Growing up with Media Study (2008-2018) conducted in the USA. Participants were 778 youth 13-18 years old at baseline, who completed online surveys assessing sexual violence…

We use the method of situational decomposition in an attempt to identify the causal effect of alcohol intoxication on adolescent sexual intercourse and contraception use. This approach assumes that the relationship between frequency of alcohol intoxication and behavior "while sober" is entirely spurious. With this in mind, the…

Alcohol remains readily available to youth in most countries. We examined the associations between both the on- and off-premises commercial availability of alcohol to youth and their alcohol use, heavy episodic drinking, and alcohol-related harms. We conducted the study using data from a survey of a sample of 594 students in central Mexico between…

Higher accepted friends are known to influence the alcohol misuse of lower accepted friends, but not the reverse. The present study was designed to address the origins of this influence: Are higher accepted friends particularly "influential" or are lower accepted friends particularly "susceptible" to influence? To address this…

A systematic review explored the creation and maintenance of community coalitions as effective for alcohol and other drug (AOD) prevention in adolescence. Community coalitions influence the implementation of effective and sustainable community-based prevention via infrastructure supporting development, delivery, and assessment of human service…