In line with the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s strategic objective of addressing real-world complexities of polysubstance use in vulnerable young adults, as well as identifying the context of these interactions to develop and disseminate effective interventions, this project tests the momentary psychological, behavioral, and geospatial risk for substance use in young adults under criminal justice supervision by integrating geographically explicit ecological momentary assessment data with risk terrain modeling. 

Justice-involved young adults are more likely to struggle with substance use disorders than the general population, and their substance use often involves polysubstance use rather than single drug use. However, there is limited understanding of the naturalistic settings and psychological and behavioral antecedents of polysubstance use in vulnerable young adults. Like other vulnerable subgroups, substance use has often been examined with traditional methodologies, such as cross-sectional or clinical/lab-based designs; yet, these assessment methods are not well suited to capture the real-time interactions experienced by most young adults under criminal justice supervision.

Principal Investigator: Jamie Gajos, Ph.D.