Description
Substance abuse is a national issue that poses many problems facing federal agencies, statewide institutions, and in smaller instances, populated communities. Children who grow up in low socioeconomic environments are surrounded by high delinquency and substance abuse rates. This study was designed to investigate if high school drug use would predict college drug use controlling for ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status. There is an implication that demographic characteristics such as ethnicity, gender and socioeconomic status alters drug use and behavior. This study examined a random sample of students attending a large public University in the Southwest and who completed a web based survey that included demographic information such as ethnicity, gender and socioeconomic status and substance use measures. A hierarchical approach to multiple logistic regression was conducted examining self-reported measures of illicit drug use in college as the criterion variable, demographics (ethnicity, gender and SES) as the control variables and high school drug use as the predictor variable. The primary question in the analysis hypothesized that high school drug use would predict college drug use above and beyond ethnicity, gender and socioeconomic status. Moreover, we predicted that participants who identified as White would use more drugs than participants who were considered a minority, and that males would report more drug use than females. Being in the higher SES category vs. being in a lower SES category was hypothesized to be a protective factor in college drug use. These hypotheses were examined in a sample of 934 students. When the control variables were entered, a significant amount of overall variance in college drug use was found, __ (df = 4, N = 934) = 22.823, p < 0.001, Nagelkerke R_ = 0.033. The inclusion of the predictor variable accounted for a significant increase in explained variance, __ (df = 4, N = 934) = 213.837, p < 0.001, Nagelkerke R_ = 0.303. There were significant main effects for gender, White vs. Minority, and high school drug use. Hispanic vs. NonHispanic and socioeconomic status did not account for a significant increase in college drug use. The results of this study will provide a basis for prevention programs tailored to specific high school and college populations.
