Socio-Ecological Risk and Protective Factors, Individual Differences, and Adolescent Outcomes: A Developmental Cascade

Abstract

Adolescent alcohol use remains prevalent, and internalizing symptoms and sleep deficits have worsened for adolescents in recent years. To better understand the development of these outcomes, I tested a developmental cascade model that indirectly linked key socio-ecological risk and protective factors (adverse childhood experiences [ACEs], parent socioeconomic status [SES], neighborhood deprivation, school engagement) at ages 9/10 to later adolescent alcohol use, internalizing symptoms, and poor sleep quality (ages 13/14) through key transdiagnostic individual difference factors (impulsivity and emotion dysregulation) at ages 11/12 and 12/13. This analysis was conducted using data from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, Release 5.1 (N = 4,677; 47.5% female, 55.9% Non-Hispanic White, 11.1% African American or Black, and 2.5% Asian). I evaluated the developmental cascade hypothesis for each predictor separately, first examining direct effects and then indirect effects via structural equation modeling (SEM). I also evaluated a final multivariate model with all predictors and associated direct/indirect effects. Baseline covariates (ages 9/10) in all models included sex at birth, race/ethnicity, impulsivity, alcohol use, internalizing symptoms, and poor sleep quality. Results confirmed that ACEs and school engagement significantly predicted internalizing symptoms and poor sleep quality. These associations were consistently found to be indirectly linked through impulsivity and emotion dysregulation, as hypothesized, with some evidence that emotion dysregulation was more relevant to paths involving ACEs in the final model. Contrary to expectations, there was limited support for the developmental cascade hypothesis regarding alcohol use; instead, greater wealth (higher parent SES, lower neighborhood disadvantage) was a risk factor (i.e., associated with a higher probability) of alcohol use. The effect sizes realized for each risk/protective factor were medium (Owen et al., 2021). Effect sizes for indirect paths were small. Results showed that 16.2%, 18.9%, and 31.0% of the predicted variance in alcohol use, internalizing symptoms, and poor sleep were explained by the final model. Findings emphasize the importance of preventing and reducing ACEs and promoting school engagement to mitigate impulsivity, enhance emotion dysregulation, and ultimately reduce internalizing symptoms and improve sleep at a sensitive turning point in adolescence. Further research is required to understand the predictors of early adolescent alcohol use in contemporary adolescent samples.