Early Life Adversity and Adult Substance Misuse: The Moderating Role of Residential Characteristics

Study overview: The purpose of this project is to identify place-based resources that can be leveraged and risks that can be mitigated for reducing substance misuse among individuals at greatest risk. More specifically, we aim to identify adult residential characteristics (e.g., social service availability, alcohol outlet density) that intensify or diminish associations between childhood adversity (e.g., poverty, maltreatment) and alcohol and tobacco misuse among midlife and older adults. We also seek to identify which groups of people may be most susceptible to the influences of the environments in which they live and age. To accomplish our objectives, we link contextual data from the National Neighborhood Data Archive (NaNDA) to individual data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a large nationally representative sample of adults over the age of 50, using geographic identifiers. Our long-term goal is to reduce the risk for substance misuse and its harmful consequences by directing targeted policies and practices to groups of individuals at greatest risk who have experienced significant early life challenges.

Bio: Dr. Blakelee Kemp (she/her) holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and Gerontology (dual-title) from Purdue University and spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow in the Aging Studies Institute at Syracuse University. As a sociologist and gerontologist, she uses large secondary datasets to examine how early life events and experiences (e.g., poverty, abuse) have enduring consequences for the health and health-related behaviors of mid and later life adults, and identify the contexts during childhood and adulthood that are beneficial (or harmful) to the health of mid and later life adults. Dr. Kemp is an Assistant Professor in Child, Youth and Family Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.