Perceived neighborhood risk as a predictor of drug use among urban ethnic minority adolescents: moderating influences of psychosocial functioning.

This study examined the moderating influences of psychosocial functioning on the relation between perceived neighborhood risk and alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use in a sample of inner-city, ethnic minority youths. Perceived neighborhood risk assessed gang activity, fighting, and neighborhood toughness. Measures of psychosocial functioning assessed intrapersonal and interpersonal skills implicated as correlates and predictors of early-stage drug use. Neighborhood risk uniquely predicted alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use; however, some relations were qualified by level of psychosocial functioning. Negative affect, peer relations, and social concern moderated the effects of neighborhood risk on alcohol use. Negative affect moderated the relations between neighborhood risk and cigarette use. Risk-taking and family relations moderated the relations between neighborhood risk and marijuana use. Overall, the size of these effects was small and underscores the need to include a wider range of conceptually relevant measures. Longitudinally, neighborhood risk was uniquely associated with less protection and greater polydrug use, controlling for early levels of psychosocial risk and protection. Net of prediction, both risk and protection were associated equivalently with neighborhood risk. Findings indicate a need to develop a more complete understanding of the precise manner in which environmental risk increases susceptibility to early-stage drug use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]