2018 · Study · English
Long-term effects of the Communities That Care trial on substance use, antisocial behavior, and violence through age 21 years
Oesterle, S., Kuklinski, M. R., Hawkins, J. D., Skinner, M. L., Guttmannova, K., & Rhew, I. C.
Oesterle, S., Kuklinski, M. R., Hawkins, J. D., Skinner, M. L., Guttmannova, K., & Rhew, I. C. (2018). Long-term effects of the Communities That Care trial on substance use, antisocial behavior, and violence through age 21 years. American Journal of Public Health, 108(5), 659–665. doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304320
Summary
Long-term follow-up of the Community Youth Development Study, the community-randomised trial of Communities That Care in seven US states (NCT01088542). Nine waves of prospective data (2004–2014) from the panel of 4,407 participants, grade 5 to age 21, were analysed with multilevel models for sustained abstinence, lifetime incidence and past-year prevalence of substance use, antisocial behaviour and violence. Through age 21, young people from CTC communities were 49% more likely to have sustained abstinence from gateway drugs and 18% more likely to have abstained from antisocial behaviour, and their lifetime incidence of violence was 11% lower. Among men, CTC also raised the likelihood of sustained abstinence from tobacco by 30% and from marijuana by 24% and lowered lifetime inhalant use by 18%. No effects were found on past-year prevalence of any behaviour. The authors conclude that CTC in early adolescence reduced the lifetime incidence of health-risking behaviour into young adulthood, the trial's furthest outcome horizon to date.