Risk Factors
Risk factors can be grouped into four major areas of life, commonly known as "domains." The four domains include: (1) family; (2) community; (3) school; and (4) individual/peer.
The following are risk factors that fall within each of these four categories.
Family
- Family history of addiction
- Family management problems (including a lack of clear expectations and rules for behavior; a lack of parental supervision and monitoring of youth to know with whom and where he/she is; a lack of praise for and nurturing of the youth; a high degree of family conflict; excessively severe, harsh or inconsistent punishment; and physical and/or sexual abuse)
- Family conflict
- Parental attitudes and involvement in crime, alcohol and other drug abuse
- Broken family structure
- Unclear rules about the use of alcohol, cigarettes and other drugs
- Low parental involvement in youth's life (including the parents' failure to notice and/or share with the youth when he/she is doing a good job; failure to solicit input from the youth regarding family decisions that affect the youth; lack of opportunities for the youth to do enjoyable things with parents; and lack of interest in whether the youth has completed his/her homework)
- Past problem behavior of siblings or step-siblings (including use of alcohol, tobacco or other drugs; carrying a handgun to school; and being suspended or expelled from school)
- Low family orientation of youth (for example, the youth seldom does things with family; does not enjoy spending time with family; has parents who are unaware of what he/she is doing and where he/she is going; feels his/her parents do not understand him/her; and has friends who, for the most part, are strangers to the family)
See
Family Strategies.
Community
- Availability of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs
- Community laws and norms favorable toward alcohol, tobacco and other drug use
- Transitions and mobility (for example, living in a transient neighborhood, changing schools, and undergoing a major lifestyle change, such as divorce of parents, relocation of family or death of a loved one)
- Low neighborhood management of problems
- Extreme poverty and social deprivation within the community
See
Community Strategies.
School
- Early and persistent anti-social behavior (particularly boys in kindergarten through 3rd grade)
- Academic failure in late elementary school
- Lack of commitment to school
See
School Strategies.
Individual/Peer
- Alienation or rebelliousness
- Friends who engage in the problem behavior (Note: This is the most reliable of the predictors.)
- Favorable attitudes toward the problem behavior
- Early initiation of the problem behavior
See
Youth Strategies.