Racial/Ethnic Differences in Illicit Substance Use: A Temporal-Ordered Test of General Strain Theory

• Author: William Ash-Houchen,Celia C. Lo
• Date: 01 April 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/0022042620904707
• Published date: 01 April 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0022042620904707

Journal of Drug Issues

2020, Vol. 50(2) 209 –230

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0022042620904707

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Article

Racial/Ethnic Differences in

Illicit Substance Use: A

Temporal-Ordered Test

of General Strain Theory

William Ash-Houchen1 and Celia C. Lo2

Abstract

This longitudinal study applied general strain theory to elaborate specific stressful events’ lagged

effects on risk of illicit substance use among non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, and

Hispanic adolescents, and relatedly evaluated the moderating role of race/ethnicity in explaining

illicit use. Data were drawn from five waves representing 9 years (2002–2010) of the 1997

National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), totaling 16,868 person-waves, and we engaged

temporal ordering and generalized estimating equations (GEE) for panel data in STATA for

data analysis. Results showed specific events affected risk of illicit substance use differentially

across racial/ethnic groups. Strains commonly encountered in disorganized spaces affected non-

Hispanic White’s risk. Measured strains did not affect non-Hispanic Black respondents and

findings for Hispanic respondents point to the family as a possible strain. Results indicated legal

drug use and depression increased risk of illicit use greatly. Race/ethnicity’s role in illicit use’s

associations with several variables illustrates differential implications for racial/ethnic groups in

policy and preventive interventions.

Keywords

substance use, adolescence, strain, stress, race, ethnicity

Introduction

Stressful events and strain, both acute and chronic, occur in daily life (Aneshensel, 2015;

Pearlin Schieman et al., 2005), but some events may present such powerful emotional states,

like depression, that coping through illicit substance use results. The literature points up these

links between stress and strain and substance use, with strain being a common motivation for

adolescent and young adult substance use (Cardoso et al., 2016; McNeil Smith & Taylor,

2015). One critical component of illicit use research among adolescents that is understudied,

however, is whether the effects of strain immediately wax then wane, meaning whether risk

generated by such strain is instantaneous or lagged and potentially lingering and affecting risk

on a longer term.

1Delta State University, Cleveland, MS, USA

2Texas Woman’s University, Denton, TX, USA

Corresponding Author:

William Ash-Houchen, Division of Social Sciences & History, Delta State University, DSU Box 3264, 1003 West

Sunflower Road, Cleveland, MS 38733, USA.

Email: washhouchen@deltastate.edu

904707JODXXX10.1177/0022042620904707Journal of Drug IssuesAsh-Houchen and Lo

research-article2020

210 Journal of Drug Issues 50(2)

Agnew’s (1992) and Agnew and Brezina (1997) general strain theory offers opportunities for

better understanding relationships between strain in adolescent’s lives, the negative affective

states strain generates, and the risk and protective factors that can contribute to criminal coping

outcomes like illicit substance use. Substance use is an increasingly common area of strain theory

research, most often alongside depression as a negative affective state (Ford & Schroeder, 2009;

Peck, 2013). It cannot be assumed that theoretical relationships will be isomorphic for different

racial and ethnic groups given the continued disproportionate concentration of these minority

groups in highly urban areas (Reboussin et al., 2016), that are often socially disorganized, pre-

senting more opportunity for illicit substance use (Voisin et al., 2016) and victimization by asso-

ciated crime elements (A. N. Allen & Lo, 2012; Spano et al., 2008). The literature also suggests

adolescents of minority racial and ethnic groups face comparatively more, and often unique

strains, compared with their white counterparts (Spohn & Wood, 2014; Steele, 2016), making

interrogation of the straining factors specific to racial and ethnic groups driving their relative

substance use risk a necessity. Differentiating impacts of straining factors on illicit substance use

for different racial and ethnic groups reflects the unique lived experiences of each of these groups,

and interrogating this social statuses’ role further refines general strain theory, and better posi-

tions the theory to generate programming aimed at continuing the downward trend in illicit sub-

stance use seen in recent years.

The present study tested general strain theory by measuring longitudinal associations between

specific strains occurring during adolescence and the early transition to adulthood, depression,

and social support, and how each of the foregoing shapes risk of illicit substance use, testing

separately for three racial and ethnic groups: non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, and

Hispanic respondents. Our study used five waves of the 1997 cohort of the National Longitudinal

Survey of Youth (NLSY), which represented 9 years (2002–2009) of survey data, alongside an

established temporal ordering technique, to identify whether and how strain occurring in the past

exerted a lagged effect (2 years) on relative risk of illicit substance use, with our model simulta-

neously including depression as a negative affective state in the strain–illicit use relationship.

Further still, for our three racial and ethnic groups, we performed a moderation analysis to exam-

ine to what extent associations for minority groups from our separately modeled tests of the

theory interacted with race and ethnicity to generate significant difference in relative strength of

associations from their non-Hispanic White counterparts.

Significance

Our study marks three significant contributions to the literature: First, the general strain literature

has become increasingly sensitized toward variations in pathways to crime based on salient social

statuses like race and ethnicity. While there are some prominent examples (Akins et al., 2010;

Leiber et al., 2010), studies that carefully analyze underlying assumptions about general theory

must continue to take into account how adolescent’s lives are structured by their racial and ethnic

background. Our study extends this growing trend in the general strain literature to acknowledge

the roles of race and ethnicity in structuring the specific strains to which adolescents of different

racial and ethnic groups are exposed (Gibbons et al., 2010; Reboussin et al., 2016), and further

examines the race- and ethnicity-specific role played by social support as a buffer against these

ambient strains life presents (Eisman et al., 2015; Neblett et al., 2010). Furthermore, our study’s

use of depression as a negative affective state contributes to the growing literature showing

depression to operate effectively as another affective state, aside from anger, agile enough to

utilize within general strain theory (Lin et al., 2011; Steele, 2016).

Second, our use of longitudinal data presents an opportunity to further examine criminal cop-

ing through illicit substance use occurring after straining events in adolescence across the life-

course into early adulthood, measuring the lagged effects of such risk 2 years after the strain