Association of Perceived Neighborhood Disorder with Substance Use Behaviors and Retail Access Among Southern California Adolescents.

Background: Neighborhood disadvantage is associated with a higher concentration of tobacco, cannabis and alcohol retailers and greater risk of certain substance use behaviors among youth. Less is known about the impact of subjective neighborhood disorder, which captures distinct exposures that may be relevant to substance use outcomes, including neighborhood social processes, safety, physical characteristics, and neighborhood drug use.

Methods: Data are from two waves (Feb-Dec 2022) of a prospective cohort of Southern California high school students ( = 2,139; mean[SD] age = 15.7.[0.6]). We examined associations of perceived neighborhood disorder at baseline with (a) perceived ease of purchase (continuous scale 0-100) for alcohol, cannabis, e-cigarettes, cigarettes, hookah, cigars/cigarillos, and oral nicotine at baseline and follow-up, and (b) repeated measures of past 6-month and past-30-day alcohol, vaped cannabis, smoked cannabis, cannabis edibles, e-cigarette, cigarette, cigarillo, hookah, and oral nicotine use.

Results: E-cigarettes were perceived to be the easiest product to purchase. Participants in the highest (vs. lowest) quartile of neighborhood disorder reported greater mean ease of purchasing scores for all products (mean difference range = 5.43 [95%CI: 1.64-9.21] for mint/menthol oral nicotine products to 9.40 [95%CI: 6.16-12.64] for hookah) and greater odds of e-cigarette, smoked cannabis, edibles, vaped THC, and alcohol use (odds ratio range = 1.52 [95%CI: 1.05 to 2.18] for past 6-month alcohol to 5.40 [95% CI: 3.46 to 8.42] for 30-day smoked cannabis).

Conclusions: Interventions that shape youth perceptions of their neighborhood and reduce youth retail access in disadvantaged neighborhoods are needed and may help to prevent youth substance use.