A trajectory analysis of alcohol and marijuana use among Latino adolescents in San Francisco, California

PURPOSE

We examined alcohol and marijuana use trajectories among Latino adolescents in the San Francisco Bay Area.

METHODS

A total of 410 Latino adolescents aged 14-19 years were recruited from community venues from years 2001 to 2004 and followed up for 2 years. In separate models, we identified groups with similar temporal patterns of alcohol and marijuana use using semi-parametric latent group trajectory modeling. Multivariable multinomial logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with the probability of trajectory group membership.

RESULTS

The use of alcohol (76%) and marijuana (55%) in the previous 6 months was common. Three alcohol-use trajectories were identified: low users (18%), moderate users (37%), and frequent users (45%). Low alcohol users (vs. moderate users) were found to be younger in age, preferred Spanish language, and had more parental monitoring. Frequent users were more likely to be male, sexually active, gang exposed, and have less parental monitoring than moderate users. Similarly, three marijuana-use trajectories were identified: low users (36%), moderate users (35%), and frequent users (28%), with similar correlates of group membership.

CONCLUSIONS

Urban Latino adolescents' substance use is shaped by complex cultural and environmental influences. Patterns of substance use emerge by early adolescence highlighting the need for timely intervention.

Poverty, gender inequities, and women's risk of human immunodeficiency virus/AIDS

Entrenched economic and gender inequities together are driving a globally expanding, increasingly female, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/AIDS epidemic. To date, significant population-level declines in HIV transmission have not been observed, at least in part because most approaches to prevention have presumed a degree of individual control in decision making that does not speak to the reality of women's and girls' circumstances in many parts of the world. Such efforts have paid insufficient attention to critical characteristics of the risk environment, most notably poverty and gender power inequities. Even fewer interventions have addressed specific mechanisms through which these inequities engender risky sexual practices that result in women's disproportionately increased vulnerabilities to HIV infection. This article focuses on identifying those mechanisms, or structural pathways, that stem from the interactions between poverty and entrenched gender inequities and recommending strategies to address and potentially modify those pathways. We highlight four such structural pathways to HIV risk, all of which could be transformed: (1) lack of access to critical information and health services for HIV/sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevention, (2) limited access to formal education and skill development, (3) intimate partner violence, and (4) the negative consequences of migration prompted by insufficient economic resources. We argue for interventions that enhance women's access to education, training, employment, and HIV/STI prevention information and tools; minimize migration; and by working with men and communities, at the same time reduce women's poverty and promote gender-equitable norms. In conclusion, we identify challenges in developing and evaluating strategies to address these structural pathways.