Pubertal stage and deliberate self-harm in adolescents.

Objective: To ascertain the association between pubertal stage and deliberate self-harm.

Method: Cross-sectional survey of 12- to 15-year-olds in 300 secondary schools in the U.S.

Block observations of neighbourhood physical disorder are associated with neighbourhood crime, firearm injuries and deaths, and teen births.

Study Objective: To provide reliability information for a brief observational measure of physical disorder and determine its relation with neighbourhood level crime and health variables after controlling for census based measures of concentrated poverty and minority concentration.

Design: Psychometric analysis of block observation data comprising a brief measure of neighbourhood physical disorder, and cross sectional analysis of neighbourhood physical disorder, neighbourhood crime and birth statistics, and neighbourhood level poverty and minority concentration.

Setting: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US (2000 population=334 563).

A cross-national comparison of school drug policies in Washington State, United States, and Victoria, Australia.

Using mail survey data collected from primary and secondary school administrators in Washington State, United States, and in Victoria, Australia, this study compared aspects of the school drug policy environment in the 2 states. Documented substance-use policies were prevalent in Washington and Victoria but less prevalent.in primary schools, especially in Victoria.

A cross-national comparison of risk and protective factors for adolescent substance use: the United States and Australia.

Purpose: To compare risk and protective factors that influence youth substance use in Australia and the United States. The two countries have different policy orientations toward substance use: Australia has adopted harm-reduction policies, and the United States has adopted abstinence-focused policies.

Methods: Cross-sectional survey data were collected from independent samples of adolescents in the states of Maine (N = 16,861; 53% female, 7% Non-white) and Oregon (N = 15,542; 51% female, 24% Non-white) in the United States and Victoria in Australia (N = 8442; 54% Female, 11% Non-white) in 1998 (Maine and Oregon) and 1999 (Victoria).

A review of school drug policies and their impact on youth substance use.

Youth substance use is an important social and health problem in the United States, Australia and other Western nations. Schools are recognized as important sites for prevention efforts and school substance use policies are a key component of health promotion in schools. The first part of this paper reviews the known status of school policies on tobacco, alcohol and other illicit drugs in a number of Western countries and the existing evidence for the effectiveness of school drug policy in preventing drug use.

Untangling developmental relations between depressed mood and delinquency in male adolescents.

Relations between depressed mood and delinquency were investigated in a longitudinal sample of 506 urban adolescent males across ages 13.5-17.5, while adjusting for common risk factors.

Neighborhood structure, parenting processes, and the development of youths' externalizing behaviors: a multilevel analysis.

Associations among neighborhood structure, parenting processes, and the development of externalizing behavior problems were investigated in a longitudinal sample of early adolescents (from age 11 to 13). Mothers' reports of parental monitoring (at age 11), mothers' and youths' reports of the amount of youths' unsupervised time (at age 11), and youths' reports of positive parental involvement (at age 12) were used to predict initial levels (at age 11) and growth rates in youths' externalizing behavior as reported by teachers. Census-based measures of neighborhood structural disadvantage, residential instability, and concentrated affluence were expected to moderate the effects of parenting processes (e.