Don’t miss our third speaker of the 2012-2013 Pamela J. Turbeville Speakers Series colloquium featuring Dr. John Schulenberg from the University of Michigan.
“Conceptual and Empirical Issues in the Study of Substance Use Across the Transition from Adolescence to Adulthood: Continuity, Turning Points, and Developmental Disturbances”
Friday, February 8th, 2013
3:00pm-4:30pm
McClelland Park, RM 402
Abstract: This talk will focus on why and how a developmental perspective is essential for advances in substance use etiology. The complexity of developmental change can be bewildering. And it can be invigorating. Despite the many advances in our understanding of substance use etiology, conceptual and empirical gaps remain concerning the complexity and heterogeneity of developmental change in substance use, including the characterization, causes, and consequences of substance use trajectories, and how trajectories vary across individuals. Considerations of continuity and discontinuity are fundamental to the understanding of developmental change, offering a needed way to parse the full range of developmental trajectories of substance use. Developmental transitions, especially major life transitions like the ones between adolescence and adulthood, provide special opportunities for examining issues of continuity and discontinuity in substance use trajectories. In this talk, I will work through different conceptualizations of continuity and discontinuity, and provide empirical examples with long-term multi-wave panel data spanning the transition to adulthood from the national Monitoring the Future study. Special emphasis will be given to discontinuity in substance use across the transition to adulthood in terms of turning points and developmental disturbances.
