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Homies with Aspirations and Positive Peer Network Ties: Associations with Reduced Frequent Substance Use among Gang-Affiliated Latino Youth

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Abstract

In marginalized urban neighborhoods across the USA, Latino youth are disproportionately represented among the growing number of youth gangs. Substance use among gang-involved youth poses both immediate and long-term health risks and can threaten educational engagement, future socioeconomic stability, and desistance. Conventional assessments of gang-affiliated youth and their peer network overlook the possibility that positive peer ties may exist and can foster health promoting behavior norms. Drawing on a positive deviance framework, in this study, we examine the relationship between positive peer network characteristics tied to post-secondary educational aspirations and frequent alcohol and marijuana use among Latino, gang-affiliated youth from a neighborhood in San Francisco. Using generalized estimating equations regression models across 72 peer network clusters (162 youth), we found that having close friends who plan to go to a 4-year college was associated with a lower odds of frequent marijuana and alcohol use (OR 0.27, p = 0.02; OR 0.29, p = 0.14, respectively) and that this association persisted when adjusting for risk characteristics (OR 0.19, p < 0.01; OR 0.25, p = 0.12). Public health can advance gang intervention efforts by identifying protective and risk factors associated with non-criminal health outcomes to inform participatory research approaches and asset-based interventions that contribute to building healthy communities.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Mi Cuento research assistants, Adriana Reyes and Monica Martinez, our data managers, Helen Cheng and Ellen Luecke, and our community partners: the Wellness Centers at Mission and John O’Connell High Schools; Valentina Sedeno of Precita Center and Mission Girls of Mission Neighborhood Centers; Claudia Jasin and Saúl Hidalgo of Jamestown Community Center; Crisis Response Network; CARECEN; and Roberto Ariel Vargas of the UCSF Community-Campus Partnerships for Health.

Funding sources

Funding for Yo Puedo came from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health (R21 HD066192; PI, Minnis) and was supported by an NICHD career development award to A.M. Minnis (K01 HD047434). The content of this paper is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development or the National Institutes of Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Women’s Global Health Imperative, RTI International, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Evan van Dommelen-Gonzalez & Alexandra M. Minnis

  2. School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Evan van Dommelen-Gonzalez, Julianna Deardorff, Denise Herd & Alexandra M. Minnis

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  1. Evan van Dommelen-Gonzalez
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Correspondence to Evan van Dommelen-Gonzalez.

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van Dommelen-Gonzalez, E., Deardorff, J., Herd, D. et al. Homies with Aspirations and Positive Peer Network Ties: Associations with Reduced Frequent Substance Use among Gang-Affiliated Latino Youth. J Urban Health 92, 322–337 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-014-9922-3

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