{"doi":"10.1002/brb3.1959","title":"Sex‐specific risk profiles for substance use among college students","abstract":"INTRODUCTION: Growing evidence indicates sex and gender differences exist in substance use. Framed by a lifecourse perspective, we explored prospectively by sex the effects of distal and proximal factors on the initiation of drug use in college. METHODS: College students without prior drug use (n = 5,120 females; n = 2,951 males) were followed longitudinally across 4 years. Analyses were estimated as a multigroup survival analysis separately by sex within a latent variable SEM framework with illicit drug use (6 or more times in past year) as the latent factor. RESULTS: More males initiated drug use (8.5%) than females (6.4%, χ2 (1) = 10.351, p = .001), but less so for Black males (AOR 0.33, 95% CI [0.18, 0.60]) and females (0.35 [0.23, 0.54]). Students initiating drug use more likely included students smoking cigarettes at baseline (males 1.40 [1.23, 1.59]; females 1.43 [1.24, 1.64]), using alcohol (males 1.04 [1.02, 1.06]; females 1.04 [1.02, 1.06]), or having cannabis using peers (males 1.79 [1.52, 2.11]; females 1.70 [1.49, 1.93]). Impulsivity domain associations differed by sex [negative urgency: females (1.23 [1.02, 1.49) and sensation seeking: males (1.33 [1.01, 1.75])]. History of unwanted/uncomfortable sexual experience predicted drug use for males (1.60 [1.09, 2.35]) and females (1.95 [1.45, 2.62]) but physical assault only for females (1.45 [1.08, 1.94]). Mood symptoms predicted drug use only for males [depression (0.73 [0.56, 0.95]); anxiety (1.40 [1.04, 1.89])]. CONCLUSIONS: Risk factors for initiating drug use during college differ by sex. As substance use during early age predisposes one for addiction, sex- and gender-informed interventions for young adults are needed.","journal":"Brain and Behavior","year":2020,"id":86318,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":14,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9274,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":320081,"name":"Albert J. Ksinan","orcid":"0000-0003-3900-5098","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":249646,"name":"F. Gerard Moeller","orcid":"0000-0003-3683-1407","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":230703,"name":"Danielle M. Dick","orcid":"0000-0002-1636-893X","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":440954,"name":"Spit for Science Working Group","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":440142,"name":"Caitlin E. Martin","orcid":"0000-0001-5560-458X","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":43,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T21:58:41.997408Z","pmid":"33222410","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}