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Published on: August 18, 2020
Cannabis Use in Rural and Urban Young Adults: The Role of Subjective Social Status and Emotion Dysregulation
1Department of Psychology, University of Maine, Orono, ME, USA.
Aims:
Rural young adults may experience disparate cannabis use and novel risk mechanisms compared to urban peers, yet remain underrepresented in the literature. Subjective social status (SSS) may be a predictor of rural young adult cannabis use due to affective sequelae and potential self-medication. This study characterized cannabis use patterns and explored a novel SSS-affect risk mechanism.
Methods:
Cross-sectional data were collected from a national young adult sample (N = 400). Online surveys solicited rurality, SSS, emotion dysregulation, and cannabis consumption.
Results:
Rural (versus urban) participants reported significantly lower SSS and greater, but nonsignificant, lifetime cannabis use prevalence and frequency, past month consumption, and hazardous use (ps > 0.05). Serial mediation suggested an indirect effect from rurality to hazardous cannabis use via SSS and emotion dysregulation (b = 0.06 ± 0.04, 95% CI [0.002, 0.16]).
Conclusion:
Current findings highlight SSS and emotion dysregulation as intermediate factors underlying cannabis risk in rural young adults. Although replication is needed, findings may inform continued research and place-based intervention development to mitigate cannabis disparities affecting rural young adults.
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