Psychosocial correlates of drug use among Puerto Rican youth: Generational status differences

The Influence of Generational Status and Psychosocial Variables on Marijuana Use among Black and Puerto Rican Adolescents

“…Our longitudinal results corroborated those of cross-sectional studies on first and second generation American adolescents (Velez & Ungemack, 1995), which highlighted the important role of parental drug use and peer unconventional behavior. Furthermore, they add to the literature by demonstrating that these factors predict young adult drug use and are not merely a consequence of its use.…”

“…Whereas the personality and family domains had a direct relationship with adolescent marijuana use, they had indirect effect as well, noted by the drop in the R 2 . Based on Velez and Ungemack's (1995) research, we characterized being a first generation American as a protective factor and we characterized being a second generation American adolescent as a risk factor. We then conducted regression analyses to examine the interactions among the psychosocial variables and generational status, with the dependent variable of past-year marijuana use.…”

Pathways from Acculturation Stress to Negative Friend Associations Among Latino Adolescents

“…First, generational status (new immigrant, first generation, second generation, etc. ; Chappin and Brook 2001;Velez and Ungemack 1995), which may be an important contributor to each of the variables included in this study, was not explicitly controlled for. However, this sample of adolescents did consist of youth who are immigrants or among the first generation.…”

Vulnerability for drug use among Latino adolescents

“…Sensation seeking (Simon, Stacy, Sussman, & Dent, 1994), deviant behavior (Zapata & Katims, 1994), and increased unconventionality (Velez & Ungemack, 1995) were also associated with drug use among Latinos. Simon et al (1994) found that, among Latinos, high sensation seeking levels were significantly related to most substance use as well as the number of drugs used, but no such association was found for the non-Latino White students.…”

“…Substance use by parents or older siblings (Barrera, Li, & Chassin, 1993;Gfroerer & De La Rosa, 1993) and family dysfunction or stress (Rodriguez, 1995;Velez & Ungemack, 1995;Zapata & Katims, 1994) are often cited as risk-inducing among Latinos. Some have hypothesized that, among Latino immigrant families, the deterioration of parental authority that can occur with the rapid acculturation of the child to the more egalitarian role of parents and offspring in the US society or when the child is the interpreter for the parents is what weakens family control and sets the stage for drug use (Velez & Ungemack, 1995). Latino runaways, youth escaping or rejected by dysfunctional families, had the highest rates of drug use relative to other runaways (Koopman, Rosario, & Rotheram-Borus, 1994).…”