Adolescent Health

A five year study conducted with thousands of local teenagers by University of Montreal researchers reveals that those who used speed (meth/ampthetamine) or ecstasy (MDMA) at fifteen or sixteen years of age were significantly more likely to suffer elevated depressive symptoms the following year. “Our findings are consistent with other human and animal studies that suggest long-term negative influences of synthetic drug use,” said co-author Frédéric N. Brière of the School Environment Research Group at the University of Montreal. “Our results reveal that recreational MDMA and meth/amphetamine use places typically developing secondary school students at greater risk of experiencing depressive symptoms.” Ecstasy and speed-using grade ten students were respectively 1.7 and 1.6 times more likely to be depressed by the time they reached grade eleven. [continue reading…]

A pair of studies by The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and State Farm® identify factors that may lead teens to drive with multiple peer passengers and, then, how those passengers may affect their driver’s behavior just before a serious crash. The studies were published today in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

Experts have long known that peer passengers increase teen driver crash risk. What hasn’t been well understood was how they increase crash risk. “These studies help us understand the factors that may predispose teens to drive with multiple friends and how those passengers may contribute to crashes by distracting the driver and promoting risky driving behaviors, such as speeding, tailgating, or weaving,” said study author Allison Curry, PhD, director of epidemiology at the Center for Injury Research and Prevention. “Knowing this, we can develop programs that work in tandem with current Graduated Driver Licensing laws that limit the number of passengers for teens during their first year of driving.” [continue reading…]

Study demonstrates that social stressors around the transition into adulthood sow the seeds of disease in mid-adulthood

Being hard up socially and financially during adolescence and early adulthood takes its toll on the body, and leads to physiological wear and tear in middle aged men and women, irrespective of how tough things have been in the interim. According to Dr. Per E. Gustafsson from Umeå University in Sweden and colleagues, experience of social and material stressors around the time of transition into adulthood is linked to a rise in disease risk factors in middle age, including higher blood pressure, body weight and cholesterol. Their work is published online in Springer’s journal Annals of Behavioral Medicine. [continue reading…]

Young Adult male helping a young adolescent boy

Image: istockphoto

Whether it’s parents, teachers, coaches, or family friends, there’s no question that adults serve as powerful role models for youth as they transition from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. Mentoring programs across the United States have tried to harness the power of positive role models in the hopes that relationships with an adult mentor will help to support kids’ socio-emotional and cognitive development. But are mentoring programs effective? And do all programs have equally positive effects?

A new report in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, takes a close look at the research that has accumulated over the last decade and identifies the aspects of mentoring programs that seem to help – or hinder – kids’ development across many domains.

It may seem like common sense that kids benefit from having mentors in their lives, and that the kids who are at risk – for poor performance in school, for engaging in risky behaviors, or for negative health outcomes – stand to benefit the most from a mentoring relationship. These assumptions are the reason that mentoring programs are used as an intervention strategy in many different settings, including education, juvenile justice, and public health. But mentoring programs vary along many dimensions and serve diverse populations, so it’s important to establish the aspects of these programs that benefit different groups of kids. [continue reading…]