A recent study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine (2022) examined the developmental assets framework is used to assess cumulative protective factors and vaping in a national sample of adolescents using a healthy youth development perspective.
Data came from the nationally representative Monitoring the Future study, consisting of 12th graders (n=6,982) from the 48 contiguous U.S. states (2017–2019).
Students with higher assets were less likely to vape nicotine and marijuana, even after adjusting for covariates.
The odds of nicotine vaping were lower for students with medium assets and high assets than for students with low assets.
Similarly, the odds of marijuana vaping were lower for youth with medium assets and high assets than for those with low assets.
Social competence and positive peer norms were strongly protective against both forms of vaping.
The study’s authors concluded that promoting cumulative assets, based on a healthy youth development perspective, may help to prevent vaping among U.S. adolescents, and increasing the specific assets of social competence and positive peer norms could be particularly fruitful.
Prevention Plus Wellness (PPW) programs, such as SPORT, Marijuana and Vaping PPW youth and parent training programs, are designed to improve social competence skills like healthy behavior goal setting and parent-youth communication.
Positive peer norms are also emphasized in PPW programs by highlighting peer models engaged in healthy behaviors like getting regular physical activity, eating healthy foods, getting adequate sleep and practicing stress control while avoiding marijuana, e-cigarette, alcohol and opioid use.
Read the full research abstract: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0749379721005080