Life Course Perspective on Alcohol and Drug Use Trajectories from Adolescence into Adulthood - Summary/Abstract
The current supplement is submitted in response to NOFO PA-20-272, and will be utilized to cover
unanticipated costs from the project related to participant retention, which required us to increase our
incentive costs. This grant continues a 13-year longitudinal study where we have followed a cohort of young
people since 2008 beginning at age 11. If we had not increased the incentive payment level in our first survey
year, we would have had considerable attrition of this longitudinal sample. This would have been a great loss
given the longitudinal data already collected as this racially and ethnically diverse and sexual and gender
diverse sample would no longer be generalizable given low retention rates. Differential attrition and decreased
retention would have significantly compromised our ability to address our aims, which specifically focus on
identifying alcohol and other drug (AOD) trajectories over time, determining factors that contribute to these
trajectories (e.g., individual, interpersonal), and examining whether disparities exist over time, and what might
contribute to these disparities. Thus, providing these unanticipated costs was critical to the accomplishment of
study aims. If we do not receive the supplement, we will continue to have decreased ability to meet the aims of
the grant as our statistician and programmer will have limited coverage in the grant years, and their effort is
key to us being able to address our aims and bringing our work to the community, policy makers, and the
public via lay documents, op-eds, and publications. Specifically, we will have a lower likelihood of completing
work related to both Aims 3 and 4 related to the new data collection. Aim 3 focuses on addressing how adult
role functioning and transitions (e.g., work, relationships, parenthood), longitudinally predict subsequent
changes in AOD use and other risk behaviors, as well as health-related quality of life, in young adulthood. Aim
4 focuses on examining disparities across race and ethnicity, gender, and educational attainment. By
increasing the incentive by $10 to $60 per survey wave, we were able to retain this large, diverse cohort and
obtain comparable retention rates across all other waves. This change was critical to addressing our aims,
which focus on longitudinal trajectories of use and outcomes and understanding disparities. The supplement
will preserve the likelihood for the grant to successfully complete all aims and the original Council-approved
scope of research.
