Pre/postnatal substance exposure, maternal distress, and adolescent risk behaviors: Role of parent-child interpersonal processes at macro and micro time scales

Adolescence is a period of high risk for the onset of risk behaviors including substance use and escalation of use. Children exposed to parental substance use beginning prenatally are more likely to engage in risk behaviors, and at earlier ages. Maternal prenatal tobacco and cannabis use are also markers of continued postnatal use, and both prenatal and postnatal use co-occur with higher maternal psychological distress (pre- postnatal risks). Parent-child processes play a critical role in the etiology of adolescent risk behaviors. However, the impact of pre-postnatal risks on parent-child warmth, conflict, and dyadic synchrony, parent support of adolescent autonomy, developmental trajectories of externalizing behaviors and child regulation, and how these increase adolescent risk behaviors are not well understood. The goal of this application is to examine developmental cascades linking pre-postnatal risks to adolescent risk behaviors (measured at macro and micro time scales) via parent-child interpersonal processes and child behavioral and autonomic regulation. We will leverage a longitudinal sample of 247 families who were recruited in the 1st trimester of pregnancy and oversampled for prenatal tobacco and co-exposure to tobacco and cannabis. Prospective biological and self- report data were collected once in each trimester of pregnancy and at 2, 9, 16, 24, and 36 months of child age, school age, and in middle childhood with 82% retention. Assessments for the current study will include five biannual waves of data collection between 14-16 years (Early Adolescence; EA) and 16-18 years (Later Adolescence; LA) and ecological momentary assessment (EMA) collected at LA for 21 days from both parent and adolescent in order to identify proximal predictors of adolescent risk behaviors (substance use, delinquency, risky sex) in LA. Interpersonal processes will be assessed across macro (longitudinal time-points from prenatal to LA) and micro (lab based interactions, real world processes via EMA) levels. Onset of substance use and other risk behaviors will be measured at all time points and expanded from prior assessments to include EMA and biomarkers of substance use at LA. The specific aims include: 1) To examine the prospective association between pre-postnatal risks and changes in adolescent risk behaviors from EA to LA; 2) Following a developmental psychopathology framework and developmental cascade models, we propose to test three theory driven pathways to late adolescent risk behaviors: a behavioral regulation cascade, an autonomic regulation cascade, and an interpersonal cascade; 3) To examine within-person effects of interpersonal processes and regulation on proximal adolescent risk behaviors in real world settings.