Does Individual Risk Moderate the Effect of Contextual-Level Protective Factors? A Latent Class Analysis of Substance Use

The current study investigated how individual risk factors interact with social contextual-level protective factors to predict problematic substance use among a sample of 12th-grade students (n = 8,879, 53% female). Results suggested six latent classes of substance use: (1) Non-Users; (2) Alcohol Experimenters; (3) Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drug (ATOD) Experimenters; (4) Current Smokers; (5) Binge Drinkers; and (6) Heavy Users. Binary logistic regression models provided evidence that individual risk, family, school, and community protective factors were associated with membership in the substance use latent classes. However, the significance of interaction terms suggested that these protective influences differed according to the level of individual risk. Adolescents with high levels of individual risk benefited less from a positive family or neighborhood context than adolescents with low levels of individual risk. These findings suggest that the individual risk factors may undermine the protective effect of parental supervision, discipline, and other family factors, as well as protective aspects of cohesive neighborhoods, among these adolescents. Multicomponent and adaptive intervention efforts that account for different levels of ATOD use involvement, as well as distinct profiles of risk and protection, are likely to be most effective in preventing problematic substance use.