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The Origins of the Correlations between Tobacco, Alcohol, and Cannabis Use During Adolescence
Author(s) -
Lynskey Michael T.,
Fergusson David M.,
Horwood L. John
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
journal of child psychology and psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.652
H-Index - 211
eISSN - 1469-7610
pISSN - 0021-9630
DOI - 10.1111/1469-7610.00402
Subject(s) - psychology , cannabis , tobacco use , developmental psychology , alcohol , clinical psychology , psychiatry , environmental health , medicine , chemistry , population , biochemistry
Methods of structural equation modelling were used to analyse the correlations between reports of tobacco, alcohol, and cannabis use in a birth cohort of New Zealand children studied to the age of 16. This analysis produced three major conclusions: (a) the correlations between tobacco, alcohol, and cannabis use could be explained by a factor representing the individual's vulnerability to substance use; (b) predictors of vulnerability to substance use were the extent to which the individual affiliated with delinquent or substance using peers, novelty seeking, and parental illicit drug use; (c) in the region of 54% of the correlations between substance use behaviours could be predicted from observed risk factors and 46% was attributable to non‐observed sources of vulnerability.