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Author: Jeon-Slaughter, Haekyung
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Jeon-Slaughter, Haekyung
An Empirical Approach in Decomposing Attributing Factors to Co-occurring Use of Marijuana and Other Forms of Illicit Drug
Presented: Chicago IL, International Conference on Health Policy Statistics, October 2013
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: American Statistical Association
Keyword(s): Drug Use; Socioeconomic Background; Substance Use

Background: Use of marijuana and other forms of illicit drugs is often co-occurred, however, few studies have addressed how much of the association between marijuana and other illicit drug use is attributable to characteristics of marijuana users and how much of it is attributable to the substance itself or to other confounding factors.

Methods: The study utilized 14-year follow-up data of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97), 4,540 males and 4,320 females in the United States and proposed Oxaca-Blinder-Fairlie decomposition method to decompose attributing factors to co-occurring marijuana and other forms of illicit drug use during young adulthood into observed and unexplained components.

Results: Marijuana users showed about 30% higher rates of other illicit drug use in the young adulthood than marijuana abstainers. Consistently across gender, about one third of this gap in other illicit drug use during young adulthood between marijuana users and abstainers was contributed by differences in predisposing demographic and socioeconomic characteristics and cigarette and alcohol consumption during adolescent years between marijuana users and abstainers with the majority of the contribution from differences in cigarette and alcohol consumption during adolescent years between marijuana users and abstainers. The remaining two thirds of the contribution to the gap were left unexplained by the study’s empirical model.

Conclusions: The proposed Oxaca-Blinder-Fairlie decomposition method deconvoluted factors attributing to co-occurring use of marijuana and other forms of illicit drug and findings provided a data driven guideline to drug policy making and prevention programs.

Bibliography Citation
Jeon-Slaughter, Haekyung. "An Empirical Approach in Decomposing Attributing Factors to Co-occurring Use of Marijuana and Other Forms of Illicit Drug." Presented: Chicago IL, International Conference on Health Policy Statistics, October 2013.