title: Brief report: Pregnant by age 15 years and substance use initiation among US adolescent girls.
abstract: We examined substance use onset and associations with pregnancy by age 15 years. Participants were girls ages 15 years or younger (weighted n = 8319) from the 1999-2003 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBS). Multivariable logistic regression examined pregnancy as a function of substance use onset (i.e., age 10 years or younger, 11-12, 13-14, and age 15 years) for alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana, controlling for race/ethnicity and metropolitan location. Of girls pregnant by age 15 years (3% of the sample, weighted n = 243), 16% had smoked marijuana by age 10 years and over 20% had smoked cigarettes and initiated alcohol use by age 10 years. In the multivariable analysis, marijuana use by age 14 years and/or cigarette smoking by age 12 years clearly distinguished girls who became pregnant by age 15 years and is perhaps due to a common underlying risk factor.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, Campus Box 8134, 660 South Euclid, St. Louis, MO 63110, USA. rehgp@psychiatry.wustl.edu
authors.forename: Patricia A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Cavazos-Rehg
authors.forename: Melissa J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Krauss
authors.forename: Edward L
authors.initials: EL
authors.lastname: Spitznagel
authors.forename: Mario
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schootman
authors.forename: Linda B
authors.initials: LB
authors.lastname: Cottler
authors.forename: Laura Jean
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Bierut
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008385:Marijuana Smoking; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D011247:Pregnancy; D011253:Pregnancy in Adolescence / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012309:Risk-Taking; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D014481:United States