Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on substance use among adults without children, parents, and adolescents.

Abstract

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on alcohol and illicit substance use among adults without children, parents, and adolescents was investigated through two studies with five samples from independent ongoing U.S. longitudinal studies. In Study 1, 931 adults without children, parents, and adolescents were surveyed about the pandemic's impact on personal behavior. 19-25% of adults without children, parents, and adolescents reported an increase in alcohol or illicit substance use. In Study 2, 274 adults without children, parents, and adolescents who had been interviewed prior to the pandemic onset about alcohol and illicit substance use problems were re-interviewed after the pandemic's onset to test within-person change. The rate of alcohol or illicit substance use problems increased from pre-pandemic to post-pandemic onset from 13% to 36% among the three groups. Increase in alcohol and illicit substance use problems was positively correlated with increased depression/anxiety and household disruption, suggesting possible mechanisms for increases in substance problems. Findings in both studies held across low- and middle-income families. Findings suggest the need for communitywide policies to increase resources for alcohol and illicit substance use screening and intervention, especially for adolescents.

Department

Description

Provenance

Subjects

Alcohol Use, COVID-19, Depression, Illicit substance use, Longitudinal inquiry

Citation

Published Version (Please cite this version)

10.1016/j.abrep.2021.100388

Publication Info

Dodge, Kenneth A, Ann T Skinner, Jennifer Godwin, Yu Bai, Jennifer E Lansford, William E Copeland, Ben Goodman, Robert J McMahon, et al. (2021). Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on substance use among adults without children, parents, and adolescents. Addictive behaviors reports, 14. p. 100388. 10.1016/j.abrep.2021.100388 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/25482.

This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.

Scholars@Duke

Skinner

Ann Skinner

Research Scientist

Ann Skinner joined the Center in 2001 and is a Research Scientist with Parenting Across Cultures (PAC) and C-StARR.  She is also the Principal Investigator for a study examining the effects of the war on young people and their families in Ukraine.

Her research focuses on the ways in which stressful community, familial, and interpersonal events impact parent-child relationships and the development of aggression and internalizing behaviors in youth. She has extensive experience in data management of multisite projects and in supervising teams for school- and community-based interventions and data collection. 

Skinner is a former supervisor in the Junior Researcher Programme, where she led a group of junior international scholars exploring the impact of COVID-19 on adolescent and young adult development.  She is currently a 2022-23 fellow with the ICDSS COVID-19 Global Scholars Program.

Prior to her work with Parenting Across Cultures, Skinner was a senior school specialist and research analyst on the GREAT Schools and Families middle school violence prevention project at the Center, as well as Project CLASS.

Skinner has a Ph.D in developmental psychology from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, a master's degree in education, and B.A. in psychology, both from the College of William and Mary, with a focus on teaching students with emotional and learning disabilities. Before joining the Center, she worked as a special education teacher, trainer, and supervisor in the North Carolina public schools and at residential facilities for at-risk youth in Rhode Island and North Carolina.

Jennifer Godwin

Research Scientist

Jennifer Godwin is a research scientist at the Center for Child and Family Policy. She joined the Center in 2003 to provide statistical expertise for various projects. Currently, she works on the Fast Track and Childhood Risk Factors and Young Adult Competence projects, providing statistical analyses. She has extensive programming experience in SAS, Stata and MPlus, including survival analysis, mediation models, and multilevel models for continuous and categorical dependent variables.

Bai

Yu Bai

Statistician III
Lansford

Jennifer Lansford

S. Malcolm Gillis Distinguished Research Professor of Public Policy

Jennifer Lansford is the director of the Center for Child and Family Policy and S. Malcolm Gillis Distinguished Research Professor of Public Policy in the Sanford School of Public Policy.

Dr. Lansford's research focuses on the development of aggression and other behavior problems in youth, with an emphasis on how family and peer contexts contribute to or protect against these outcomes. She examines how experiences with parents (e.g., physical abuse, discipline, divorce) and peers (e.g., rejection, friendships) affect the development of children's behavior problems, how influence operates in adolescent peer groups, and how cultural contexts moderate links between parenting and children's adjustment.

Copeland

William Everett Copeland

Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Goodman

Ben Goodman

Research Scientist

Ben Goodman is a research scientist at the Center for Child and Family Policy. His research interests focus broadly on the implementation and evaluation of population-based interventions to reduce child maltreatment and improve parent and child health and well-being, including the evidence-based Family Connects postpartum nurse home visiting program. His research also examines how sources of stress and support shape the quality of parent-child relationships, parents’ own well- being, and child development.

Research Interests:
  • Home Visiting
  • Child Maltreatment
  • Parenting
  • Program Evaluation
Education:
  • Ph.D. The Pennsylvania State University - 2009

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