How Adjudicated Youth Transition to Adulthood: Polysubstance Use as a Risk Factor for Social Relationships

Youth substance use is a pervasive public health issue. It can lead to youth not completing basic education, unemployment, severe physical and mental health issues and even affect social relationships. Youth who use multiple substances may be at greater risk of experiencing more negative life outcomes. Further, youth who are not in employment, education or training (NEET) are at significant risk of social exclusion especially if they were previously incarcerated. Being adjudicated and being a substance user may make it significantly more difficult to get involved in community activities, having good friendships, and romantic relationships upon transitioning to young adulthood. The purpose of this study was to use multidimensional growth mixture modeling (MGMM) to examine heterogeneity in polysubstance use among a sample of adjudicated youth aged 14 -19 years old. Data were collected from 1,354 adjudicated youths from the juvenile and adult court systems in Maricopa County (Phoenix), Arizona (N=654) and Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania (N=700). After establishing the number of substantive interpretations of the polysubstance use classes, the manual three-step approach was used to examine predictors of the classes. Following this, the classes were used to predict NEET status and social relationships in young adulthood using logistic regression. Three polysubstance use classes were identified: “Low-Use,” (36.12%, n = 489), “Poly-Use,” (25.99%, n = 352), and “Tobacco-Dominant,” (37.89%, n = 513). Classes of polysubstance use partially influenced NEET status and significantly influenced social relationships in young adulthood for adjudicated youth.