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The problem
Intervention: This is an observational study examining the natural variation in substance use timing and patterns, not testing an intervention
Who it was tested with: 890 males from low-income neighborhoods, followed from age 13 to 37 years.
Children or communities are compared with a group that did not receive the intervention, or followed over years. This is the design that best separates what the intervention did from everything else that changed.
"Drawing on a cohort of males (n = 890) from low-income neighborhoods, we used group-based multi-trajectory modeling to identify profiles of poly-substance use (alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, illicit drugs) from age 13-17 years. Regression models were used to link substance use profiles to... outcomes... obtained from administrative records." This longitudinal design with objective administrative outcome data and comparison between naturally-occurring groups constitutes strong observational evidence of associations between early substance use onset and poor adult outcomes.
Study is observational; causality cannot be definitively established despite adjustment for child IQ, family adversity, and behavioral problems. Generalizability limited to low-income males.
Across countries and designs
22 studies · 17 countries
A reviewer checked the classification against the source.
claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · synth-v1
