Urban Adolescent Depression Symptoms and Substance Use Involvement and the Moderating Effect of Peer Networks and Activity Space

Adolescents with depression disorders have higher rates of substance use involvement. There is a continued need to understand the developmental context of these mental health problems in order to advance meaningful health promoting and risk reducing interventions. Peer network health (sum of peer risk and protective behaviors) as a target mechanism for such interventions holds much promise. Adolescent peer network health is constituted within activity spaces (routine locations) and represent a dynamic social force in buffering or exacerbating the effects of depression and substance use. Activity space can be defined as comprising all the locations that an individual has direct contact with as a result of his or her daily activities. More broadly, activity spaces are the manifestation of our spatial lives, serving as an index representing routine locations and all the accompanying psychological, social, and health-related experiences of these places.

Toward this end, we tested a longitudinal, 3-way moderation model with 247 urban adolescents to determine if depression’s effect on substance use was dependent upon peer network and activity space. The predictor (X) was depression measured at baseline, the first moderator (M) peer network health was measured at 6 months, the second moderator (W) activity space, was measured at 6 months, and the dependent variable (Y) was substance use measured at 24 months.

Results showed that peer network health moderated the effects of depression on substance use involvement for adolescents with lower activity space risk (less substance use, less high-risk behavior). Depressive symptoms appear to interact with protective peer network health (less peer behavioral risks, more prosocial behaviors) for those adolescents who perceive their activity space as less risky.

These findings point to the importance of understanding the dynamic place-based nature of adolescent peer network health and the social dimension of depressive symptomatology and substance use involvement.