"I've smoked weed with my daughter": Cannabis Use within Families Affected by Parental Opioid Misuse.

Youth with parents who use opioids are more likely to engage in early substance use, especially cannabis use. The purpose of this study was to describe the context of cannabis use among families affected by parental opioid misuse. We conducted 25 in-depth interviews with families affected by parental opioid misuse.

Maintaining Community-engaged Research with Young People in A Virtual setting.

Background: Partnering with young people to conduct research is fundamental to community mobilization. Recent restrictions on in-person interactions and engagement presented limitations for continued partnership with young people.

Objective: To present a practical strategy and lessons learned to facilitate community-engaged research with youth in a virtual setting.

Using the intervention mapping for adaption framework to adapt an evidence-based sexual health intervention for youth affected by trauma.

Background: Children exposed to household challenges (i.e., parental substance use, incarceration, and mental illness) are among the groups most vulnerable to sexual risk-taking in adolescence.

A Latent Class Analysis: Identifying Pregnancy Intention Classes Among U.S. Adolescents.

Purpose: Few studies have captured the multidimensionality of pregnancy intentions for adolescents on a national level, particularly missing the perspectives of male adolescents. Therefore, this study aimed to identify and describe pregnancy intention profiles among U.S.

"It's on every corner": assessing risk environments in Baltimore, MD using a racialized risk environment model.

Physical, social, economic, and political environments can increase harm and risk among people who use drugs. These factors may be exacerbated in urban environments with a history of systemic inequality toward African Americans. However, racialized risk environment models have rarely been used within substance use research.

When a house is never a home: Housing instability among youth affected by parental drug abuse.

Background: The negative consequences of parental substance abuse are significant and longstanding for children. Among other risks, these youth are more likely to experience housing instability. The most common predictor of a child not living with their biological parent is parental substance use.

"I can try and plan, but still get pregnant": The complexity of pregnancy intentions and reproductive health decision-making for adolescents.

Introduction: Teen pregnancy rates have declined in the United States; however, disparities continue to persist particularly among minority, low-income adolescents. A greater understanding of how pregnancy intentions are conceptualized for adolescents, and the role of the social context may illuminate reasons for disparities. The aim of this study was to expand the lens in which adolescents' perspectives of pregnancy are studied by exploring the contextual factors that frame how pregnancy intentions are developed among urban adolescents.

"Don't Close the Door on Them": Recruiting and retaining vulnerable Black adolescents in prevention research.

There is a need to understand why some strategies work better than others for engaging vulnerable Black adolescents in prevention research, especially those who are affected by parental drug use. The current study sought to fill this gap. Thirty in-depth interviews were conducted with parents who reported a history of illicit drug use (N = 11), young adults who had a biological parent with a history of illicit drug use (N = 14), and service providers who work with families affected by illicit drug use (N = 5).

Parent, partner and individual contexts of very early first sex experiences among young men and their links to subsequent reproductive health outcomes.

Research indicates that upwards to 30% of US urban Black male adolescents report first sex younger than age 13; however, there is limited literature on the sexual and reproductive health outcomes and contexts of these early first sex experiences. This exploratory study described sexual and reproductive health histories and explored personal, partner and parent contextual factors associated with first sex experiences occurring at 13 years or younger among a sample of US urban young men aged 15-24. Participants were assessed on their demographics and sexual health histories and a subset of young men were assessed on the contextual factors related to their first sex experience.

Supplementing Substance Use Prevention With Sexual Health Education: A Partner-Informed Approach to Intervention Development.

Supplementing substance use prevention with sexual health education would allow educators to address the risk and protective factors that influence both health issues. This streamlined approach may minimize the inefficiencies of multisession, single-purpose interventions. Our team developed a supplemental sexual and reproductive health (SRH) unit to align with an existing evidence-based intervention, LifeSkills Training (LST).

Making success tangible: reengaging female opportunity youth in Baltimore, MD.

Opportunity Youth represents over four million young people who are not in school and are unemployed. In Maryland, Baltimore City has the highest rate of youth disconnection. In spite of this, there are limited culturally relevant program models specific to the experiences of urban, African American youth.

"I missed open arms": The Need for Connectedness among Black Youth Affected by Parental Drug Use.

Parental drug use has significant impacts on the physical, behavioral and social well-being of adolescents, particularly those from disenfranchised communities. We conducted a qualitative study to understand connectedness among Black adolescents affected by parental drug use in Baltimore, Maryland. In-depth interviews (N=30) were conducted with three groups: parents with a history of drug use, youth (18-24yo) who had a biological parent with a history of drug use and youth providers with experience working with families affected by drug use.

How adolescents cope with food insecurity in Baltimore City: an exploratory study.

Objective: To increase our understanding about food insecurity among urban adolescents, we conducted a qualitative study in Baltimore City with adolescents to: (i) explore how adolescents experience and cope with food insecurity; and (ii) identify community-based approaches or interventions for addressing food insecurity.

Design: A total of eight focus groups were conducted across six neighbourhoods. To gather sociodemographic characteristics and personal data on food insecurity, all consented adolescents completed a brief questionnaire.