CSSS Seminar: Using GPS-EMA techniques to understand environmental contextual influences on teen risk behavior
Posted: 4/3/2017 (Local Events)
Abstract: Teens’ increased freedom to explore different environments potentially increases exposure to contextual risks such as social disorganization. Socially disorganized areas, in which residents have difficulty maintaining social and physical order, are related to increased teen alcohol, tobacco, and other drug (ATOD) use and delinquency. Alcohol outlets, indicators of disorganization, influence teen alcohol use through increased access and perceptions of alcohol use as normative. Most prior studies have not considered context dynamically, instead focusing on a static area, typically administrative units (e.g., census tracts) around the teen’s home as the area of environmental influence. However, these units may not capture contextual risks where teens spend time, potentially missing a key influence on ATOD use and delinquency. By instead measuring all the places teens spend time (i.e., activity spaces), we address this gap in past research. Integrating GPS-EMA techniques, we apply this methodology to examine whether contextual exposures in teens’ activity spaces differ from contextual risks present in residential contexts and examine relationships between contextual exposures in activity spaces and teen risk behaviors.
Date: 04/05/2017
Time: 12:30 - 1:30 PM PT
Location: University of Washington, Savery 409