The Prevalence and Prospective Relationships of Dual Use (of Cigarettes and Cannabis) and Internalizing Disorders among US Adults
Abstract
People who report dual use represent a high-risk population given their elevated physical and mental health risk relative to those who report sole use of cigarettes or cannabis, yet they are understudied. The evidence that does exist suggests that those who report dual use are more at risk for internalizing symptoms and disorders compared to those who report sole use of either cigarettes or cannabis, but no study to date has examined these relationships longitudinally. As such, the current study examined the prevalence and prospective relationships of dual use (vs. sole use) and internalizing disorders among US adults using publicly available data from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study. The PATH Study is a nationally representative, longitudinal cohort study that investigates tobacco use behaviors among the US population aged 12 and older. The current study used data from the adult cohort (N = 32,320) of which 9,591 met inclusion criteria. Results indicated that dual use, compared to cigarette only smoking, confers an additive risk for developing internalizing disorders even after taking into account the greater likelihood of subsequent dual use among those with internalizing disorders. They also suggest that dual use and cannabis only use are similar in terms of risk for having a future internalizing disorder but that dual use is incrementally more of a risk than cannabis only use when compared to cigarette only use. Given these findings, people who report dual use should be considered a particularly vulnerable population even among people who report either cigarette or cannabis use as we saw evidence for a hierarchy of risk based on use status.
Subject Area
Clinical psychology
Recommended Citation
Lee, Joun, "The Prevalence and Prospective Relationships of Dual Use (of Cigarettes and Cannabis) and Internalizing Disorders among US Adults" (2022). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI29326859.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI29326859
