The Dimensions of Social Isolation in Adolescence

• In Event: 251 - Section on Alcohol, Drugs and Tobacco Paper Session. Social, Cultural and Contextual Dimensions of Substance Use

Abstract

Social isolation has significant negative impacts on heath, particularly for adolescents. Past research on social isolation has used a variety of measures of isolation, however, making the effect of isolation unclear across studies. In this study, we introduce a social network measure of isolation based on two dimensions. Simply, students can be isolated because they do not send friendship ties, either to others in the same grade or to people outside of the school or grade, or because they do not receive ties. Using data from the PROSPER study, we test the association of the dimensions of isolation with past month cigarette, alcohol, and marijuana use. We find that students who we refer to as aloof, meaning that they do not send any within grade friendship ties, and students who we refer to as unpopular, meaning that they do not receive any within grade friendship ties, are less likely to use alcohol, but that students with several out of grade ties are more likely to use cigarettes or marijuana. These findings support the notion that smoking is associated with isolated students, but that connections outside of school create opportunities for students to smoke. Alcohol use, by contrast, is associated with more socially connected students. We separate by gender, and find that social isolation and out of school connections are associated with higher cigarette use among girls and marijuana use among boys.

Authors

• Molly Copeland, Duke University

• Jacob Charles Fisher, Duke University

• James Moody, Duke University

• Mark Feinberg, Pennsylvania State University