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Community‐Level Exposure to the Rural Mining Industry: The Potential Influence on Early Adolescent Alcohol and Tobacco Use
Author(s) -
Gay Christopher,
ClementsNolle Kristen,
Packham John,
Ackerman Gerald,
Lensch Taylor,
Yang Wei
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
the journal of rural health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.439
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1748-0361
pISSN - 0890-765X
DOI - 10.1111/jrh.12288
Subject(s) - smokeless tobacco , environmental health , residence , logistic regression , odds , rural area , medicine , typology , socioeconomics , demography , tobacco use , geography , population , sociology , archaeology , pathology
Purpose Rural youth have higher rates of alcohol and tobacco use compared to their urban counterparts. However, the economic dependence of rural communities may differentially influence risk behaviors. While research has shown that adults working in mining have elevated rates of alcohol and tobacco use, the influence of living in a mining community on early adolescent substance use is unknown. Methods Using data from a representative sample of 4,535 middle school students in a state with heavy reliance on mining, we conducted weighted logistic regression to investigate whether community‐level mining economic dependence influences rural‐urban differences in adolescent alcohol and tobacco use. All models adjusted for sociodemographics, military family involvement, parental monitoring, and length of residence. Findings Over one quarter of the sampled students lived in rural counties and approximately half of these counties met the USDA mining economic typology. After stratifying rural counties by mining and nonmining economic dependence, students in rural mining counties had significantly higher odds of all measures of alcohol use (AORs ranged from 1.83 to 3.99) and tobacco use (AORs ranged from 1.61 to 5.05) compared to students in urban counties. Only use of smokeless tobacco was higher among students in rural nonmining counties. Conclusions Our findings demonstrate rural‐urban disparities in adolescent substance use that are particularly pronounced among youth living in counties with economic dependence on mining. Future research on this subject should include a wider range of community‐level factors that may have specific relevance in rural settings to inform the development of population‐level interventions.