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Updated: Dec 15, 2025

Experimental Paradigm for Measuring the Effects of Self-distancing in Young Children
Published on: March 1, 2019
Do peer social relationships mediate the harmful effects of a housing mobility experiment on boys' risky behaviors?
Nicole M Schmidt1, Naomi Harada Thyden2, Huiyun Kim1
1Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
Purpose:
The purpose of this study was to understand why a housing mobility experiment caused harmful effects on adolescent boys' risky behaviors.
Methods:
Moving to Opportunity (MTO) (1994-2010) randomly assigned volunteer families to a treatment group receiving a Section 8 rental voucher or a public housing control group. Our outcome was a global risky behavior index (RBI; measured in 2002, n = 750 boys) measuring the fraction of 10 items the youth engaged in, 6 measuring past 30-day substance use and 4 measuring recent risky sexual behavior. Potential mediators (measured in 2002) included peer social relationships (e.g., peer drug use, peer gang membership).
Results:
The voucher treatment main effect on boys' RBI was harmful (B (SE) = 0.05 (0.02), 95% CI 0.01, 0.08), and treatment marginally increased having friends who used drugs compared to controls (B (SE) = 0.67 (0.23), 95% CI 0.22, 1.12). Having friends who used drugs marginally mediated the MTO treatment effect on RBI (indirect effect: B (SE) = 0.02(.01), 95% CI -0.002, 0.04), reducing the total treatment effect by 39%.
Conclusions:
Incorporating additional supports into housing voucher programs may help support teenage boys who experience disruptions to their social networks, to buffer potential adverse consequences of residential mobility.
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