Monitoring and Peer Influences as Predictors of Increases in Alcohol Use Among American Indian Youth

This study investigated the combined influence of parental monitoring, community monitoring, and exposure to substance-using peers on early-onset alcohol use in a sample of American Indian adolescents in three Pacific Northwest tribal communities. We used structural equation modeling, including tests of indirect effects, in the investigation of 281 American Indian youth between ages 8 and 16 years at the time of consent. The effects of parental monitoring and community monitoring, mediated by friends’ substance use, were examined in terms of youth alcohol use outcomes. Parental monitoring practices and contagion in peer substance use were proximal predictors of early-onset alcohol use and the mediating effect of friends’ substance use was not significant. Community monitoring accounted for unique variance in affiliation with substance-using friends.