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Peer-graded Assignment: Getting Your Research Project Started

I would like to look into the “National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health” (AddHealth) dataset. I have 2 lovely niece and nephew and their ways of being brought up is a constant conversation topic at my family table. Hence, I’m particularly interested to study the factors that may influence an adolescent’s health and risk behaviors.

While looking through the AddHealth Code Book, there were many factors such as personal traits, families, friends, romantic relationships, peer groups, schools, neighborhoods, and communities. I was most concerned with factors that would affect an individual’s upbringing and character, such as Section 29 on delinquent and undesirable behavior and also factors that impact their health such as Section 28 on Tobacco, Alcohol, Drugs.

I decided to zoom in on the topic of tobacco, alcohol, and drugs as these are things that my family finds taboo and would definitely shun from. At the same time, I was also reminded of news that reported that there is an increasing trend of teenagers getting hooked on these things at a much young age. If I were to make some guesses on what might influence a teenager to eventually fall prey to these substances, it would largely be due to family, education, and social factors. As I grew up in a very close-knitted family, I’m vastly interested to see if there are any associations between adolescents’ relations with parents (Section 16) and their actual usage in tobacco, alcohol and drugs.

Relatedly, the second topic that I would like to explore would be Section 33 on suicide tendency as I feel it would be very helpful if we would be able to identify would are the factors that would increase an adolescent’s tendency to think about these things. Relatedly, at this point, I would also be interested in Section 18 on Personality and Family, as it contains questions touching directly on communication with parents, as well as Section 39 on their relationship with their siblings.

Sections interested: Section 16,18, 28, 39. A personal code book based on these sections and variables have been picked out and saved separately.

The association I would like to study would be (1) Association between use of tobacco, alcohol and drugs and relationships with their parents, and (2) Association between suicide tendency and relationships with parents and siblings

Literature review seems to suggest that there are indeed some associations between usage of substances and parental influence. The paper “Peer and parental influences on adolescent tobacco use” by Anthony BiglanTerry E. DuncanDennis V. AryKeith Smolkowski, showed that structural equation modeling indicated that inadequate parental monitoring and association with deviant peers and predicted tobacco use.

There was even a paper titled “Family Dinner Meal Frequency and Adolescent Development: Relationships with Developmental Assets and High-Risk Behaviors” by Jayne A. Fulkerson, Mary Story, Alison Mellin, Nancy Leffert, Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, Simone A. French, that examines the associations between family meal frequency and developmental assets and high-risk behaviors among a national sample of adolescents. Consistent positive associations were found between the frequency of family dinners and all developmental assets, including both external (e.g., support, boundaries and expectations, On the converse, consistent inverse relationships were found between the frequency of family dinners and all high-risk behaviors measured (i.e., substance use, sexual activity, depression/suicide, antisocial behaviors, violence, school problems, binge eating/purging, and excessive weight loss.

However, there was also a paper “Parent‐Child Communication About Adolescent Tobacco and Alcohol Use: What Do Parents Say and Does It Affect Youth Behavior?” by Susan T. Ennett Karl E. Bauman  Vangie A. Foshee  Michael Pemberton  Katherine A. Hicks that showed that contrary to the assumption that parent‐child communication about tobacco and alcohol use is assumed to be critical to child use of these substances, parent‐child communication was not related to initiation of smoking or drinking. The study however, suggested, that parent‐child communication about rules and discipline predicted escalation of use.

To this end, I am interested to further study if frequency of evening meals together with parents has any associated on eventual alcohol use. It might be interesting to look at variables that looks at closeness of relationship with their mother and father, such as how much does the adolescent feels his parents care from him. I would hypothesize that the closer the relationship the adolescent has with his parents, the less likely he would use tobacco, alcohol or drugs. The variables I would need would be H1WP8, H1WP9, H1WP14, drawing mainly from Section 16.

For the second association between suicide tendency and relationships with parents and siblings. There is a study “Risk factors and life processes associated with the onset of suicidal behaviour during adolescence and early adulthood” by D. M. Fergusson, L J. Woodward, and L. J. Horwood that examined associations between childhood circumstances, adolescent mental health and life events, and the development of suicidal behaviour in young people aged between 15 and 21 years. The results found that by the age of 21 years, 28·8% of the sample reported having thought about killing themselves and 7·5% reported having made a suicide attempt. The childhood profile of those at greatest risk of suicidal behaviour was that of a young person reared in a family environment characterized by socio-economic adversity, marital disruption, poor parent–child attachment and exposure to sexual abuse, and who as a young adolescent showed high rates of neuroticism and novelty seeking. Mental health problems including depression, anxiety disorders, substance use disorder, and to some extent conduct disorder, in addition to exposure to adverse life events, were significantly associated with the onset of suicidal behaviours.

Another paper, “Risk factors for suicidal behavior among a national sample of adolescents: Implications for prevention” by Angela E. Waldrop, Rochelle F. Hanson, Heidi S. Resnick, Dean G. Kilpatrick, Amy E. Naugle, Benjamin E. Saunders, studied factors associated with suicidal ideation and attempts were examined among a national probability sample of adolescents. It was found that suicidal ideation was positively associated with female gender, age, family alcohol and drug problems, violence exposure, lifetime depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Suicide attempts were associated with female gender, age, sexual and physical assault, lifetime substance abuse or dependence, PTSD, and depression.

More specifically on family relationships, the paper “Family Factors in Youth Suicidal Behaviors” by Barry M. Wagner, Mary Alice C. Silverman, Catherine E. Martin, found that both fatal and nonfatal suicidal behaviors have been linked consistently to negative parent-child relationships (e.g., high conflict, low closeness), child maltreatment, residing with less than two biological parents, and family history of affective and antisocial disorders. Parental separation/divorces and family history of suicidal behavior and alcohol/substance abuse are more strongly associated with completed suicide than with other suicidal symptoms, but family systems problems (such as low cohesion and adaptability) and insecure parent-child attachments are more consistently associated with nonfatal suicidal symptoms than completed suicide.

To this end, I would like to hypothesize that low family cohesion, both with parents and siblings would be strongly associated with higher tendency of suicide ideation and attempts. The variables I would need would be H1SU1, H1SU2 as well as those from Section 39 such as H1WS5A on perception of  love they receive from parents, H1WS1B on amount of time spent together, H1WS3B on how often the siblings quarrel or fight.