title: Homies with aspirations and positive peer network ties: associations with reduced frequent substance use among gang-affiliated Latino youth.
abstract: In marginalized urban neighborhoods across the USA, Latino youth are disproportionately represented among the growing number of youth gangs. Substance use among gang-involved youth poses both immediate and long-term health risks and can threaten educational engagement, future socioeconomic stability, and desistance. Conventional assessments of gang-affiliated youth and their peer network overlook the possibility that positive peer ties may exist and can foster health promoting behavior norms. Drawing on a positive deviance framework, in this study, we examine the relationship between positive peer network characteristics tied to post-secondary educational aspirations and frequent alcohol and marijuana use among Latino, gang-affiliated youth from a neighborhood in San Francisco. Using generalized estimating equations regression models across 72 peer network clusters (162 youth), we found that having close friends who plan to go to a 4-year college was associated with a lower odds of frequent marijuana and alcohol use (OR 0.27, p = 0.02; OR 0.29, p = 0.14, respectively) and that this association persisted when adjusting for risk characteristics (OR 0.19, p < 0.01; OR 0.25, p = 0.12). Public health can advance gang intervention efforts by identifying protective and risk factors associated with non-criminal health outcomes to inform participatory research approaches and asset-based interventions that contribute to building healthy communities.
authors: Women's Global Health Imperative, RTI International, San Francisco, CA, USA, evg48@berkeley.edu.
authors: Evan
authors: E
authors: van Dommelen-Gonzalez
authors: Julianna
authors: J
authors: Deardorff
authors: Denise
authors: D
authors: Herd
authors: Alexandra M
authors: AM
authors: Minnis
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000208:ethnology; D005260:Female; D006630:Hispanic or Latino / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007604:Juvenile Delinquency; D008297:Male; D002189:Marijuana Abuse / Q000208:ethnology; D010379:Peer Group; D012307:Risk Factors; D012495:San Francisco / Q000453:epidemiology; D012725:Sexual Behavior; D064890:Social Determinants of Health; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000208:ethnology*; D014504:Urban Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D055815:Young Adult
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