Adolescent Delinquency and Health

Do risks experienced by adolescents in their socio-structural environment cascade to create individuals who are more susceptible to a multitude of adverse outcomes? From a control theory perspective, we examine whether risk factors predict a broad range of delinquent and health outcomes over time and examine to what extent these outcomes are temporally related to one another. We use data from the first two waves of the publicly available National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 4,834). Results indicate that delinquent behaviours such as violence, aggression, and property damage are similarly predicted by the same risk factors as depression and perceived health and tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, and hard drug use. Most outcomes were associated with one another, suggesting that they may be comorbid manifestations of risk exposure. We identify temporal associations between tobacco use and depression; between tobacco and marijuana use and hard drug use; between perceived health and alcohol, marijuana, and hard drug use; and between nuisance delinquency and both alcohol and marijuana use.