"Gateway hypothesis" and early drug use: Additional findings from tracking a population-based sample of adolescents to adulthood.

To evaluate the consistency of the relationship between early drug use in adolescence and illegal drug use in adulthood as proposed in the "gateway theory" and to determine whether pre-existing depressive symptoms modifies this relationship. We used contractual data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult health data spanning a 14 year period. We assessed the relationship between gateway drugs at baseline (age 11-20 years) and drug use in adulthood using generalized estimating equation (GEE) regression models.

Association between depressive symptoms in adolescence and birth outcomes in early adulthood using a population-based sample.

Background: Adolescent female depressive symptomatology is an unrecognized mood disorder that impairs health in adolescence or adulthood. However, the long-term effects of pre-pregnancy depressive symptoms on birth outcomes in adulthood have not been given adequate empirical assessments.

Method: In this study, we assessed the relationship between the life time duration of depressive symptoms over a 14-year period and birth outcomes (LBW and PTB) among a sample of 6023 female respondents who took part in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health).

Telemedicine licensure in the United States: the need for a cooperative regional approach.

The extraordinary successes and refinement of modern telemedicine applications in recent years have been diminished somewhat by the anachronistic licensure laws of the 50 state jurisdictions that limit the practice of medicine to specific state geographic boundaries. This approach is deficient when applied to telemedicine because, with the advent of the Internet and modern technological advances, differences in space and time are rendered nearly meaningless. It is recommended in this paper that the practice of telemedicine be handled differently than the practice of face-to-face medicine, as related to licensure.