Moving Targets: Modeling Developmental Trajectories of Adolescent Alcohol Misuse, Individual and Peer Risk Factors, and Intervention Effects

From a developmental perspective, a central goal ofprevention is to alter behaviors that are already changing-that is, to redirect potentially risky trajectories. This multiwave panel study examines the longer-tem e f i t s of a prevention program on trajectories of alcohol misuse and related risk factors (susceptibility to peer pressure to misbehave and exposure to peer alcohol use). We conceptually and empirically compare Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) and Latent Growth Curve Modeling (LCM), working within the tradition of each technique andnoting similarities and differences in approaches, hypothesis operationalizations, andjhdings. Five waves of data (Grades 6 to 10, n = 675)fiom the Alcohol Misuse Prevention Study, a randomized treatment-control group study designed to examine the efects of a school-based prevention program that focused on increasing social (especially re&ar) skills, were analjaed. H M a n d LCManalyses showedsusceptibility, exposure, and alcohol misuse increased mostly linearly across adolescence and covariedpositively within and across time, arguing that they exist in a mutually reinforcing web of influence. Both techniques revealed small treatment effects, with the prevention reducing the normative increase in alcohol misuse during adolescence. There were some minor, but important, differences between H M a n d LCMin conclusions about intervention effects. Substantive and developmental methodological implications are discussed.