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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2025 Jan 1.
Published in final edited form as: Health Place. 2023 Dec 8;85:103158. doi: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2023.103158

Using EMA to explore the role of Black adolescents’ experiences in activity spaces in momentary negative emotion and marijuana use

Jaime M Booth a
PMCID: PMC10922345  NIHMSID: NIHMS1953002  PMID: 38070361

Abstract

Research examining the role of place in Black adolescents’ health behaviors typically examines neighborhoods, with little attention paid to micro geographies such as activity spaces. Understanding experiences in activity spaces may be especially important for Black adolescents living in neighborhoods traditionally characterized as disadvantaged. The SPIN project recruited 75 Black adolescents living in a single neighborhood to complete ecological momentary assessments (EMA) about the activity spaces they encountered over a month. Perceptions of violence and social support in activity spaces in a day are related to marijuana use during the day, relationships partially explained by negative momentary emotions.

Keywords: activity space, EMA, negative emotion, marijuana use, Black Adolescents

Introduction

Marijuana use in adolescence is a continuing public health concern with negative consequences for Black adolescents. Recently, Black adolescents have surpassed their White peers in Marijuana use due to a continuous increase in Black adolescents’ use while White adolescents’ use is generally declining (Johnston et al., 2020). Recent substance-use trajectories indicate that Black adolescents typically initiate and escalate marijuana use in middle and late adolescence and do not exhibit the same decline in adulthood as observed among their White counterparts (Brown, Flory, Lynam, Leukefeld, & Clayton, 2004; Chen & Jacobson, 2012). Heavy marijuana use among Black adolescents is associated with greater disadvantages in mid-life (Green, Doherty, & Ensminger, 2017). Some disadvantages, such as lower income, are attenuated by school dropout; others, such as greater anxious moods, are not (Green et al., 2017). These trends in marijuana use among Black adolescents may be at least partially explained by persistent structural and interpersonal racism that exposes them to a disproportionate number of stressors, necessitating strategies to cope (Williams, 2018).

In America, Black adolescents’ racialized experience necessitates theories of adolescent development and substance use that consider their unique ecological circumstances (García Coll et al., 1996). The history of racial residential segregation has resulted in the spatial clustering of stressors that arise due to structural and interpersonal racism (García Coll et al., 1996;Krivo, Peterson, & Kuhl, 2009; Zare et al., 2022). While the relationship between violence and social support in neighborhoods, defined using administrative boundaries (Booth, Teixeira, Zuberi, & Wallace, 2018; Light & Thomas, 2019), and adolescent outcomes have been examined (Goldman-Mellor, Margerison-Zilko, Allen, & Cerda, 2016; Milam, Furr-Holden, & Leaf, 2010; Rosario, Salzinger, Feldman, & Ng-Mak, 2003), youth perceptions of violence and support across multiple contexts and in ecologically valid geographical units, such as activity spaces, are rarely considered. Similarly, few studies have assessed Black youth’s perceptions of racism in all the ecological contexts they encounter. Lastly, very few studies have assessed youth perceptions of spaces over time, limiting our ability to understand the within-person dynamics between exposures to activity spaces, negative emotions, and marijuana use. This study sought to address these gaps by recruiting 75 Black adolescents to participate in a study that leveraged ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to understand their experiences in activity spaces several times a day for a month and the relationships between these experiences, negative momentary emotion, and marijuana use during the day. Assessing Black Youth’s experiences in activity spaces, or “a set of places that they encounter as a result of their routine activities in everyday life” (Cagney et al., 2020. P.624), is critical to advancing our understanding of the role of stressors and protection in the ecological context of marijuana use.

Stress and Marijuana Use

Theories of stress and coping suggest that adolescents are continually relating to their environment, appraising those environments for stressors, and employing strategies to cope. In Lazarus’ (2006) model of stress and coping, he argues that stress arises when a person assesses their environment and deems the situation a significant barrier, threat, or challenge to achieving a goal, a process called appraisal (Lazarus, 2006). In this model, adolescents’ appraisal of their environment, an internal process, is critical to understanding the relationship between the environment and youth behavior. This is especially true in adolescents, a developmental stage in which Black adolescents are becoming increasingly aware of social contexts, their place in the world, and systems of power and oppression that may be a significant source of stress (Velez & Spencer, 2018). In the face of a stressor and limited options for coping, substances, such as marijuana, may be used to temporally avoid experiencing the negative emotions that may occur when stress arises (Rhodes & Jason, 1990).

Levels of subjective stress are higher among Black adolescents (Goodman, McEwen, Dolan, Schafer-Kalkhoff, & Adler, 2005) and are a known risk factor for marijuana use initiation (Low et al., 2012; Marshal, Burton, Chisolm, Sucato, & Friedman, 2013; Siqueira, Diab, Bodian, & Rolnitzky, 2000; Wagner, 1993) and escalation to high-intensity use (Brody et al., 2012). Both psychological and physiological stress is consistently related to negative affect in adolescents, a relationship amplified by discrimination and buffered by social support (Doane & Zeiders, 2014; Seddon et al., 2020). When stress arises, substances may be used to decrease negative affect and increase positive affect ( Buckner et al., 2015). In a study of marijuana users that utilized ecological momentary assessment (EMA), participants reported using marijuana to cope with stress and anxiety (62.7%) more than social motives (17.7%) and conformity motives (2.8%) and that rates were even higher when participants reported a negative affect (Buckner, Beardslee, & Bassuk, 2004). Among adolescents, marijuana use, employed as a means of coping with stress, predicts problematic substance use in adulthood (Patrick, Schulenberg, O’Malley, Johnston, & Bachman, 2011; Whiteford et al., 2013).

Anti-black racism impacts Black adolescents’ development by exposing them to interpersonal discrimination and shaping the environments in which they typically spend time (ie, school, neighborhood). Interpersonal discrimination, when perceived as stressful, is related to negative emotion and both psychological and physiological stress responses (Benner & Wang, 2017; Joseph, Jiang, & Zilioli, 2021; Lee & Ahn, 2013; Pachter & Coll, 2009; Priest et al., 2013). Unsurprisingly, perceived discrimination is related to higher rates of marijuana use among adolescents (Gibbons et al., 2012; Okamoto, Ritt-Olson, Soto, Baezconde-Garbanati, & Unger, 2009). An EMA study demonstrated that experiences of discrimination in a day were related to substance use later in the day and that these effects were larger than other forms of mistreatment (Livingston, Flentje, Heck, Szalda-Petree, & Cochran, 2017). In a series of experimental studies, discrimination experiences among Black adolescents were related to substance use, but only among those who endorse substance use as a strategy for coping (Gerrard et al., 2012).

For Black youth, residential racial segregation is related to exposure to a disproportionate number of stressors, such as violence, but may also offer support (Sharkey, 2006) by protecting them from prejudice and providing a space where they are familiar with the norms and their racial identity is valued and uplifted (García Coll et al., 1996) Mason, 2010). Exposure to neighborhood violence, disadvantage and disorder, the results of racial segregation, and subsequent lack of resources, are all related to Black adolescent transitions from marijuana offers to problematic use and the speed at which these transitions occur (Reboussin et al., 2015). For Black adolescents, experiences of discrimination from teachers and peers in the school environment are related to more marijuana use (Jelsma & Varner, 2020). However, Martin and colleagues (2011) found that adolescents who lived in racially segregated neighborhoods reported fewer incidents of discrimination and more support. Neighborhood social cohesion is related to less marijuana use among adolescents but this relationship is mediated by association with substance-using peers (Pei, Wang, Wu, Shockley McCarthy, & Wu, 2020). This mirrors the differences in the effect of peer and parental social support on adolescent substance use, with peer social support being related to more substance use and parental social support being related to less (Wills & Vaughan, 1989). The consistent relationship between stress, discrimination, and marijuana use among Black adolescents and the complicated manifestation of violence, racism, and social support in neighborhoods necessitates the examination of Black adolescents’ experiences of activity spaces in real-time.

Activity Spaces and Marijuana Use

Black adolescents’ perceptions of the spaces they occupy throughout the day, including in their neighborhood, may impact their level of stress and marijuana use. Some geographers argue that “the meaning of place” is “subjective, experiential, and relational--emerge[ing] from the interplay between a person and a location” (pg. 846), suggesting that adolescents’ perceptions of space play a critical role in their health behavior (Mennis & Yoo, 2018). Bronfenbrenner’s (1981) conception of the phenomenological experience of environments draws on Lewin’s concept of “life space,” or all the spaces a person interacts with and perceives. Lewin describes “life spaces” as having two critical elements: 1) the activities that take place there and 2) the perceived connection of people in the place (Bronfenbrenner, 1979).

While adolescents certainly spend a significant amount of time in their home neighborhood, the geographical unit often used in studies of place, restricting investigations to aggregated characteristics of neighborhoods, fails to adequately describe the totality of youth’s experiences or “exposures” to spaces (Browning & Soller, 2014). In addition to examining activity spaces outside of the neighborhood, aggregating across a neighborhood also limits our understanding of subcultures within neighborhoods and adolescents’ choices when navigating their neighborhoods (Kubrin & Wieitzer, 2003; Sharkey, 2006). Similarly, aggregating administrative data or adult reports to the neighborhood limits our understanding of youth perceptions or appraisals of their environment, a critical aspect of the stress process. For example, studies have found that adolescents living in neighborhoods with high levels of disadvantage typically describe their home neighborhood as being safer than those with more advantage because it is familiar, highlighting the importance of adolescents’ appraisal (Flynn & Mathias, 2020a; Sharkey, 2006). Still other studies have shown that adolescents’ perceptions of safety are related to how similar space is to their home environment and that these features impact their interpretation of that space (Mason, 2010). Adolescents may also report a single space as safe and risky, dependent upon the adolescent’s experience in that space (Bjornstrom, Ralston, & Kuhl, 2013; Hipp, 2010). Assessing Black youths’ perceptions of activity spaces and social processes occurring within them is essential to understanding the relationship between the stress and support experienced in activity spaces and marijuana use (Flynn & Mathias, 2020b). To achieve this aim and address the limitation of traditional neighborhood studies, this study uses ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to assess Black youth’s perceptions of the activity spaces they typically spend time in both within and outside their neighborhood.

Current Study

With the aim of understanding Black youths’ experiences of activity spaces and their relation to negative momentary emotion and substance use this study engaged 75 Black adolescents living in a single segregated and under-resourced neighborhood in an EMA study. In this study, participants were given cell phones and asked to answer brief questions about their current location and emotions three times a day for a month. In addition to the EMA survey questions that assessed their experiences in activity spaces, they were asked to report their daily substance use at the end of each day. In this paper, we use this data to address the following hypothesis (see Figure 1):

  1. Black adolescents’ perceptions of violence and racism in activity spaces in a day will be related to elevated negative momentary emotion which in turn will be related to reporting using more marijuana that day.

  2. Black adolescents’ perceptions of social support in activity spaces in a day will be related to decreased negative momentary emotion and, therefore, less reported marijuana use that day.

EMA allowed us to assess the youth’s perceptions of their environment in real-time and in locations they frequent in their everyday lives. The method also allows us to examine within-person relationship, controlling for each individual’s average (Bolger, Davis, & Rafaeli, 2003).

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

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Hypotheses and models of with-in person relationships

Methods

From July 2019 to November 2020, the SPIN Project recruited 75 Black adolescents, ages 13–18, currently living in a single highly segregated neighborhood (93% Black) in the northeast to participate in a study that used EMAs to assess the relationship between youth’s perceptions of spaces, momentary emotions, and marijuana use. Study participants were recruited by members of the study’s Youth Research Advisory Board (YRAB) using word-of-mouth, snowball sampling, and advertising in strategic spaces in the neighborhood. The studies YRAB consisted of 11 youths recruited from the neighborhood school and met once a week starting in June 2018 to oversee all aspects of the study, for more information about the YRAB’s involvement in the study, see (redacted for peer review). Participants were invited to participate in the study if they were between the ages of 13 and 18 and currently lived in the study neighborhood. Race was not included in the inclusion criteria but 98% of the sample identified as Black or African American.

Survey Procedure

After parents consented and the youth assented to participate in the study, the youth completed an initial baseline survey. They were then given a smartphone with the application MetricWire installed so that brief surveys could be pushed to the participant four times a day, three during the day and one at the end of the day. Surveys administered during the day were triggered by geofences placed around activity spaces in the participant’s home neighborhood that the YRAB had identified as meaningful and were supplemented with random triggers to ensure that participants received surveys while spending time outside their neighborhood or in their home neighborhood outside of locations that were geofenced. By using both geofences and random triggers to push EMA surveys assessing perceptions of activity spaces, we were able to over-sample locations in the participant’s home neighborhood and assess youth experiences in spaces outside of their neighborhood or when they were in their home neighborhood and did not encounter a geofence in a given time frame. In addition to the three surveys completed during the day, surveys were also completed at the end of the day, asking youth about their substance use that day. This study’s analytic sample completed 2,041 EMAs and 1,480 end-of-day surveys. Marijuana use was assessed at the end of the day rather than in situ due to concerns about youth feeling they were under surveillance and the accuracy of reporting. Youth were given 45 min to complete EMA surveys and until 6 am the following day to complete the end-of-day surveys. After the initial survey was triggered, youth were reminded to complete it three times if it remained uncompleted. To compensate participants for their time, they were given $15 a week if they completed any surveys, $20 a week if they completed 75%, and $25 if they completed 85% of all EMA surveys.

Response rates for the surveys were monitored by study staff who contacted adolescents if they were non-responsive for more than 48 hours. Twelve core questions were asked in every survey, and 50% of 32 questions about the context were randomly selected each time they completed a survey, utilizing a planned missing at random design to decrease participant burden and increase the EMA response rates. Markov Monte Carlo method of multiple imputation was used to generate 100 imputed data sets using an iterative method (Little, 2013). Only data missing due to the planned missing at random design were inputted. On average, each participant completed 27 EMA (SD =16.47) surveys during the day throughout the study period, with the number completed ranging from 1 to 75 and 20 (SD=15.56) end-of-day surveys. The overall response rate to EMA surveys was 29%, and the end-of-day survey response rate was 62%. There was no significant difference in response rates by gender and age. Surveys were more likely to be submitted in the afternoon (42%) than in the morning (26%) and evening (32%). Most EMA surveys were completed on weekdays (72%). Ninety-eight percent of participants’ path data collected using passive GPS fell within a 100-meter buffer of the location of an EMA survey completion, suggesting no systematic spatial patterns missing EMA completion.

Measures

Dependent Variable.

Daily marijuana use amount was assessed at the end of each day by asking participants, “Did you smoke marijuana today?”, if the participants responded yes, they were asked, “How many times did you smoke marijuana today?” with six possible responses, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and more than five times. These questions were combined to create a count variable of the number of times a participant smoked marijuana in a day ranging from 0 or more than five times.

Negative Emotion

Momentary negative emotion that has been found to be correlated with both physiological and psychological stress (Waston, Clark & Tellegen, 1988; Joseph, Jiang & Zilioli, 2021) was measured by asking participants, “Thinking about when you received the survey, how 1) annoyed, 2) frustrated, 3) overwhelmed, 4) nervous, were you feeling?” with possible responses ranging from not at all (1) to very much (5). This measure was initially based on the PANAS (Watson, Clark & Tellegen, 1988). Items from the PANAS were combined with other existing measures of monetary emotion by asking the YRAB to identify words that indicated negative emotion and/or stress to them from a list of words that had been used to assess these constructs in previous studies (Joseph, Jiang & Zilioli, 2021). When a factor analysis was conducted, momentary negative emotion was found to be distinct from positive emotion. This scale also had high internal consistency (alpha = .90) and was strongly correlated with the youth’s report of stress (single item) at the end of the day r=.48 and anxiety (Beck’s Anxiety Inventory) at baseline r = .45.

Racism

Perception of racism was measured in EMA surveys by asking participants, “Please tell us how much you agree with the following statements: 1) Here people are judged by the color of their skin, 2) Here people can be themselves without worrying about a racist insult (reverse coded). And 3) Here, people can relax without fear of police harassment (reverse coded). Possible responses ranged from (5) “strongly agree” to (1) “strongly disagree”. The items were informed by Fisher, Wallace, and Fenton’s (2000) measure of discrimination distress during adolescence. These three statements resonated most with the YRAB and were adapted to apply to routine activity locations. A mean score was calculated for racism (alpha = .55). Given the low Cronbach’s alpha, the correlations between items were examined. The item that was positively worded (Here, people are judged by the color of their skin) was weakly correlated with the other two negatively worded variables (r=.15, r=.10).

Violence

Violence in activity spaces was measured with three items that included 1) I feel like things can become physically violent around here at any time, 2) I have seen physical violence towards others while I have been in here before, and 3) I have heard about there being physical violence here before, with possible responses ranging from (5) strongly agree to (1) strongly disagree (alpha = .89). This scale was designed to capture participants general feelings, previous experience, and reputation of violence in the activity space. Participants’ responses to these measures were group-mean-centered on individuals (Enders & Tofighi, 2007).

Social Support

This study defines social support as “information leading the subject to believe that he is cared for and loved, esteemed, and a member of a network of mutual obligation” (Cobb, 1976, p.300). To measure youth perceptions of social support in a routine activity location in EMA surveys, they were asked, “Please tell us how much you agree with the following statements: 1) People care about me here, 2) People here value me, 3) People here treat me with respect and 4) I know that people here have my back.” (Items were adapted from Social Support Appraisals Scale, Vaux et al., 1986). Possible responses ranged from (5) “strongly agree” to (1) “strongly disagree.” A mean score was calculated for social support (alpha =.95). Participants’ responses were group-mean-centered on individuals (Enders & Tofighi, 2007).

Controls

All models controlled for 30-day marijuana use at baseline, age, gender, and depression using the CES-D at baseline. The previous 30-day marijuana use was measured by asking participants, “In the past month, how often have you smoked marijuana?” with possible responses ranging from none (0) to (6) several times a day. Regular marijuana use prior to the EMA study period was included to account for the possibility that regular use was influencing both perceptions of violence, racism and social support in activity spaces and daily marijuana use (Mennis et al., 2016; Mason et al., 2009). Age and gender were included as control variables because both are related to regular marijuana use (Miech et al., 2021). Age was coded in years, and gender was coded one as male and zero as female. SES was assessed using seven item scale that asked respondents, “At home, there is enough money to: 1) Buy food, 2) Take the bus, 3) Pay utilities, 4) Pay for school expenses, 5) Buy the cloths that you needs, 6) Buy the cloths that you want, and 7) Do fun activities (ie go on vacation, go out to eat). Possible responses ranged from Never (1) to Always (5). A mean score was created, with a higher score representing higher SES. This measure was used in lieu of income because adolescents, who may not be aware of their family’s income, were completing the survey. Lastly, the day of the study that the survey was completed was included in the model to control any design effect, including fatigue.

Data Analysis Strategy

Multiple imputations were conducted using the multivariate normal regression iterative Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method to impute the values of the adolescents’ perceptions of racism, violence, and social support that were planned missing at random. One hundred imputed data sets were created. All analyses were conducted in STATA 15. All models were estimated in a multilevel framework where days (M(SD)= 20(15.56)) were nested within individual participants (N=75). Negative binomial regression models were estimated to predict the number of times a participant smoked marijuana each day to account for the overdispersion (M(SD)= .27(.91)) of marijuana use (Coxe, West & Aiken, 2009). Baron and Kenney’s (1986) four-step approach was used to test the role of momentary negative emotion on the relationship between daily perceptions of racism, violence, and social support and marijuana use during the day reported at the end of the day. This approach was used because it accommodated the multilevel structure of the data, multiple imputation, and both standard linear and negative binomial regression. First, three separate models were estimated to test the association between daily perceptions of racism, violence, and social support on the number of times a participant smoked marijuana in a day reported at the end of the day (Model 1). Next, models estimated the association between daily perceptions of racism, violence, and social support on daily negative emotions (Model 2), and then the association between daily negative emotions on marijuana use that day (Model 3). Lastly, all paths were included in a single model (Model 4) (See Figure 1). Multilevel linear models were used to estimate Model Two because daily negative emotion was normally distributed. In addition to observing the change in the association between perceptions of activity spaces and reported marijuana use amount when the negative momentary emotions were added into the model, the Sobel test of indirect effect was also calculated to assess if a statistically significant indirect relationship was present. Growth and quadratic growth terms were included in all models to account for growth across days, although it was not under investigation. The quadratic term was included because it improved the model fit and was statistically significant in all models. To assess the possibility of reverse causation, models were also estimated, assessing the relationship between reported marijuana use and negative momentary emotions and perceptions of locations.

Results

In this study, 44% of participants reported smoking marijuana at least once in the month prior to the EMA data collection period. Fifty-two percent of respondents identified as female; the average age was 15.23 (See Table 1). On average, respondents reported that they had experienced characteristics of depression some of the time (M(SD) = 2.03 (.42)) in the week before completing the baseline survey. On average, respondents reported that the location they were in was not violent or typically racist and had social support, although there were sizable daily variations around these averages (See Table 2). Daily perceptions of violence in activity spaces were positively related to daily perceptions of racism (r = .26) and negative momentary emotion (r =.07). In contrast, daily perceptions of social support in activity spaces were negatively related to daily racism (r = −.61) and negative momentary emotion (r = −.06) in locations (See Table 2). Daily perceptions of location were not related to average perceptions, marijuana use or depression prior EMA data collection, age or gender (see Table 2).

Table 1.

Sample Demographics

M(SD) %
Age 15.33(1.76)
Race
African American/Black 98
Hispanic 1
Other 1
Gender
Female 52
Male 36
Fathers Education
Some High School 35
Graduated High School 49
Trade School 2
Associate degree 2
Graduated College 13
Mothers Education
Some High School 20
Graduated High School 48
Trade School 5
Some College 11
Associates Degree 3
Graduated College 12
Graduate/Professional
Degree 1
Live with Mom 85
Live with Dad 28
SES 3.88(.86)
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Table 2.

Descriptive Statistics and Correlation of All Independent Variables

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 M(SD)
EMA
Daily Violence (1) 1.00 .00(.69)
Daily SS (2) 0.00 1.00 .00(.64)
Daily Racism (3) 0.26 −0.61 1.00 .00(.86)
Daily NE (4) 0.07 −0.06 0.02 1.00 .00(.91)
Mean Violence (5) 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.00 2.59(.77)
Mean SS (6) 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 −0.22 1.00 3.77(.75)
Mean Racism (7) 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.54 −0.89 1.00 2.38(.56)
Mean NE (8) 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.29 −0.43 0.45 1.00 2.06(.87)
Baseline
30 Day MJ Use (9) 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.15 −0.14 0.16 0.19 1.00 1.03(1.67)
Age (10) 0.00 0.00 −0.00 0.00 −0.15 0.06 −0.11 0.08 0.16 1.00 15.23(1.77)
Gender (11) 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.06 −0.16 0.19 −0.01 −0.08 0.06 1.00 .56(.50)
Depression (12) 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.06 −0.15 0.12 0.27 0.57 0.09 −0.20 2.03(.42)
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a

p <.05 are bolded.

b

NE = Negative Emotion, SS= Social Support, MJ = Marijuana Use

Support was found for the first hypothesis, with the results indicating an indirect relationship between perceptions of racism and violence in activity spaces in a day and marijuana use that day through negative momentary emotion. When testing the first path, a positive relationship was found between daily perceptions of violence (B(SE) = .17 (.09), p<.05) and racism (B(SE) = .42(.09), p<.001) in activity spaces and daily marijuana use amount measured at the end of the day(see table 3, M1s). Support was also found for the first association hypothesized in the indirect relationship with perceptions of violence (B(SE) = .16 (.09), p<.001), racism (B(SE) = .15(.03), p<.10) being positively associated with more negative momentary emotion controlling for participates average perceptions and depression prior to EMA data collection. A significant relationship was also found between daily momentary negative emotion and daily marijuana use amount measured at the end of the day with an expected .26 increase in the number of times a participant used marijuana in a day for every one unit increase in reported negative emotion that day. When the Sobel test of indirect effect was calculated, a significant indirect relationship was found between violence (Sobel test = 2.34(.02), p<.05) and racism (Sobel test = 2.20(.02), p<.05) marijuana use amount via momentary negative emotion. When the full model was estimated, negative emotion fully accounted for the relationship between perception of violence in activity spaces in a day and marijuana use amount that day, with the relationships becoming nonsignificant when momentary negative emotion was included in the model (see Table 3 & 3 M4). This, however, was not the case for perceptions of racism, with perceptions of racism continuing to be significantly related to marijuana use amount (B(SE) = .35(.14), p<.05) when momentary negative emotion is included in the model.

Table 3.

Models assessing the direct (M1), indirect (M2 & M3), and meditating (M4) relationship between perceptions of violence/racism in activity spaces and Marijuana use

Violence Racism Violence/Raci Violence Racism
M1 (MJ) M2 (NE) M1 (MJ) M2 (NE) M3(MJ) M4(MJ) M4(MJ)
n=1,480 n=2,039 n=1,480 n=2,039 n=1,261 n=1,261 n=1,261
B(SE) B(SE) B(SE) B(SE) B(SE) B(SE) B(SE)
Daily Violence .17(.09)* .16(.02)*** .09(.10)
Mean Violence −2.16(1.72)* .44(.09)*** .67(.69)
Daily Racism .42(.13)*** .15(.03)* .35(.14)*
Mean Racism −2.87(.78)*** .70(.13)* −.66(.66)
Daily NE .22(.09)* .20(.09)* .15(.09)+
Mean NE −4.11(.70)*** −4.14(.62)*** −3.80(.76)***
30-Day MJ 2.17(.44)*** .10(.05)* 1.94(.36)*** .09(.05) .27(.20)* .30(.21) .35(.23)
Age −.06(.37) −.04(.04) .41(.32) −.04(.04) −.15(.24) −.16(.22) −.10(.23)
Gender 1.34(.83) .14(.15) −.61(.81) .11(.15) 1.12(.70) .86(.70) .91(.70)
Depression 5.96(1.84)** .28(.19) .08(1.52) x .23(.19) 7.30(1.76)** 5.92 (1.82)*** 5.96(1.94)***
Day .06(.03)* .00(.01) .07(.03) −.00(.01) .04(.03) .04(.03) .06(.03)
Day2 −.00(.00)** −.00(.00) −.00(.00)** −.00(.00) −.00(.00)** −.00(.00)** −.00(.00)**
SES −1.84(.79)* .04(.09) −2.02(.59)** .01(.08) −3.30(.61)*** −2.92(.70)*** −3.28(.65)***
Constant −3.25(4.83) .44(.93)) 4.18(4.92) .14(.89) 7.14(4.54) 3.44(5.388) 9.75(5.99)
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a

p <.001

***

p <.01

**

p <.05

*

p <.10 +

b

NE = Negative Emotion, MJ = Marijuana Use

To test the possibility of reverse causation, the relationship between the amount of marijuana a participant reported smoking in a day and their perceptions of violence and racism in activity spaces was estimated, and no association was found between the marijuana used that day and perceptions of violence in activity spaces and a marginally significant relationship (B(SE) = .03(.02), p=.06) between the amount of marijuana used and perception of racism in activity spaces. The amount of marijuana smoked in a day was also not related to the amount of negative momentary emotions reported in day. We also assessed the relationship between negative emotion and perceptions of racism and violence in activity spaces. We found that there was a significant positive relationship between day-level negative emotion and perceptions of violence (B(SE) = .23(.03), p < .001) and racism (B(SE) = .10 (.02), p< .001) in activity spaces but no relationship between participants average reports of negative momentary emotions and perceptions of violence and racism.

Support was also found for the second hypothesis, with the result indicating a significant indirect relationship between perceptions of social support and marijuana use through a decrease in negative momentary emotion. When testing the first path, a marginally significant negative relationship was found between experiencing activity spaces characterized as having social support and marijuana use amount that a day (B(SE) = −.18 (.11), p<.10) (see table 4, M1). Testing the possibility of an indirect relationship, reporting being in activity spaces with more social support was significantly related to a decrease in negative momentary emotion (B(SE) = −.12 (.02), p <.001) controlling for participants average perceptions and depression prior to EMA data collection. As in the previous model, a significant relationship was also found between daily momentary negative emotion and daily marijuana use amount measured at the end of the day. When the Sobel test of indirect effect was calculated, a significant indirect relationship was found between perceptions of social support in activity spaces via momentary emotion (Sobel test = −2.26(.01), p<.05). When the full model was estimated, negative emotion fully explained the marginally significant relationship between support in activity spaces and marijuana use amount, with the relationships becoming nonsignificant when momentary negative emotion was included in the model (see Table 3 & 3 M4). Again, to assess the possibility of reverse causation, the association between the amount of marijuana used in a day and perceptions of social support that day were estimated, and no relationship was found. There was, however, a significant relationship between day-level momentary negative emotion and perceptions of social support in activity spaces (B(SE)=−.14(.02), p<.001) but no relationship between individual-level averages in momentary negative emotions and perceptions.

Table 4.

Models assessing the direct (M1), indirect (M2 & M3), and meditating (M4) relationship between perceptions of social support in activity spaces and Marijuana use

Model 1 (MJ) Model 2 (NE) Model 3(MJ) Model 4(MJ)
n=1,480 n=2,039 n=1,261 n=1,261
B(SE) B(SE) B(SE) B(SE)
Daily SS. −.18(.11)+ −.12(.02)*** −.16(.11)
Mean SS 1.82(.50)** −.42(.10)*** .62(.42)
Daily NE .22(.09)* .18(.10)+
Mean NE −4.11(.70) −4.12(.72)***
30-Day MJ Use 1.86(.37)*** .10(.05)+ .27(.20)* .30(.21)
Age .38(.35) −.06(.04) −.15(.24) −.16(.22)
Gender −.78(.84) .17(.15) 1.12(.70) .86(.70)
Depression .58(1.56) .25(.20) 7.30(1.76)**** 5.92(1.82)**
Day .06(.03)+ −.00(.01) .04(.03) .05(.03)
Day2 −.00(.00)** .00(.00) −.00(.00)** −.00(.00)**
SES −1.45(.50) −.04(.09) −3.30(.61)*** −3.38(.64)***
Constant −11.47(4.13)** 3.79(.90)*** 7.14(4.54) −11.72(4.62)
Open in a new tab
a

p<.001

***

p<.01

**

p<.05

*

p<.10 +

b

NE = Negative Emotion, SS= Social Support, MJ = Marijuana Use

Discussion

Building on existing evidence that suggests both neighborhood and interpersonal stressors and support influence Black adolescents’ experience of stress and marijuana use, this paper aimed to investigate the relationship between their perceptions of stressors and supports in activity spaces and its relation to negative emotion and marijuana use. Focusing on activity spaces and within-person effects over a short time scale allows us to understand variations in day-level exposures to stressors and support in spaces and if those are related to day-level variations in negative emotion and marijuana use. By investigating within person relationships over time, we can begin to isolate the role of context in emotions and health behaviors and the potential effect of addressing features of activity spaces in improving Black adolescents’ negative emotions and the need to use substances to cope. While this study allowed us to examine with-in person variations in activity space level perceptions and the theoretically motivated hypotheses, the temporal ordering of the variables assessed does not allow us to rule out the possibility perception of activity spaces are being influenced by participants’ negative momentary emotion or marijuana use prior to interacting with the activity space. Despite the possibility of reverse causation, the results of this study lend support to the hypothesized relationships with little support provided for the influence of the amount of marijuana smoked in a day influencing perceptions of activity spaces or negative momentary emotion.

In this study, based on the social stress process model, we hypothesized that spending time in spaces perceived as potentially violent or racist in a day would be related to increased negative momentary emotion, which in turn would be related to more marijuana use that day. Evidence was found to support the direct relationship between perceptions of violence and racism in activity spaces in a day and marijuana use. The significant indirect relationship suggests that youth use more marijuana on the day that they experience spaces that are violent or raciest and may be done to cope with the stress that arises when inhabiting those spaces.

While there was no evidence that marijuana use influenced adolescents’ perceptions of activity spaces or their report of negative emotion, we were not able to rule out the possibility that an omitted variable may influence both adolescents’ perceptions of space and their report of negative emotion. All the models in this study controlled for symptoms of depression prior to EMA data collection and participants’ average reports of negative momentary emotion, but it is possible that events or interpersonal conflicts that happened prior to the EMA assessment influenced the participant’s perception and emotions rather than the participant’s emotions being influenced by the characteristics of the space. In fact, in this study, individuals’ daily perceptions and their average perceptions of violence and racism in space were independently and positively related to daily negative emotions. The positive associations between individual average perceptions and their daily variations and negative emotions indicate that individual-level characteristics that dictate exposure or perceptions of daily exposures may be necessary to consider when understanding the role of context on emotion. When tested, individual averages in negative momentary emotion did not predict perceptions of activity spaces but significant associations were found between day-level negative emotion and perception of activity spaces. Testing within person averages allows us to control for personal characteristics and individuals’ average perception but not for time-limited events that may influence both. While there is substantial support for the relationship between both perceptions of activity spaces and negative emotion in the amount of marijuana an adolescent used that day, the relationship between perception of activity spaces and negative emotion should be interpreted with more caution. Negative emotions influence perceptions of a space. It is also possible that there is a dynamic interaction between emotion and perception with negative emotion causing the participant to perceive the environment as violent or racist and that perception further increases negative emotion, both of which may amplify the participant’s likelihood that they will use marijuana to cope. While this study provides more fine-grain assessment than is possible in traditional survey methods, future research may need to assess momentary emotion prior to interaction with activity spaces of interest to isolate the role of characteristics of space in emotional and stress responses.

The differential role of negative momentary emotion in the relationship’s perceptions of racism and violence in an activity space on marijuana use amount suggest that there is emotion or dynamics beyond negative emotion influencing marijuana use amounts when youth interact with space that perceived as racist. These could include feelings of social rejection and exclusion (Drydakis, 2022), anger (Gibbons et al., 2010), hopelessness (Bolland, 2003) or an enactment of racial stereotypes (Spencer, 2007). While these findings support the clear link between perceptions of racism and marijuana use found in previous studies conducted at the interpersonal level (Bolland, 2003; Livingston et al., 2017; Okamoto et al., 2009) these findings suggest that more research is needed to understand the emotional response that may be connecting Black youths perception racism in their environment and marijuana use behaviors. It should also be noted that participants’ average perceptions of racism and violence in spaces were associated with less marijuana use, operating in the opposite direction of day-level reports. These finding suggests that there might be a potential protective role of racial consciousness or socialization on average but that daily encounters with spaces that are characterized as racist may increase marijuana use. Importantly, these findings also indicate that the positive association between perceptions of violence and racism and marijuana use is happening and the day (activity space) level rather than the individual supporting the need to assess youth perceptions of spaces in real-time rather than assessing a global perception at one point in time.

In this study, support was also found for the hypothesis that experiencing social support in an activity space will protect youth from negative emotions and, therefore, be related to less marijuana use. In contrast to perceptions of racism and violence, only a marginally significant direct relationship was found between perceptions of social support in activity spaces and marijuana use. However, there was support for an indirect relationship between social support in spaces and marijuana use through negative momentary emotions. Similar to the possibility of reverse causation present in relationships between perceptions of racism and violence in activity spaces and negative momentary emotion, an unmeasured variable may be influencing both momentary emotion and perceptions of social support in activity spaces. It should be noted that consistent with previous studies that found a positive relationship between peer social support and substance use (Wills & Vaughan, 1989), there was a positive relationship between youths’ average perceptions of social support in spaces and marijuana use. Consistent with a large body of literature showing that social support is protective at the interpersonal level, participants’ averages and daily perceptions of social support were negatively related to negative momentary emotion (Harandi, Taghinasab, & Nayeri, 2017). Therefore, daily perceptions of social support were only related to less marijuana use when that social support decreased the participants’ negative emotions. These results suggest that social support may be protective in some scenarios and may increase the chance that Black youth will use marijuana in others. This finding is consistent with previous studies that found that the potentially protective effect of peer social support is complicated by the relationship between associating with substance-using peers and marijuana use. Youth in this study may perceive activity spaces where there are substance-using peers or adults as supportive and when that support does not also decrease negative emotions that may be related to more substance use rather than less. Put another way perceiving social support in activity spaces may decrease the amount of marijuana used to cope with stress but not necessarily marijuana used for social reasons. In fact, the relationship between negative momentary emotion and the amount of marijuana used in a day becomes non-significant when perceptions of social support in activity spaces are both included in the model. These results reinforce the importance of understanding the dynamic role of social support in space and over time in the relationship between social support and marijuana use among Black adolescents.

Limitations

While this study advances our understanding of the association between youth perceptions of activity spaces, negative emotion, and marijuana use, the findings must be interpreted considering several limitations. The study participants were recruited using convenience sampling, potentially biasing our results and limiting our ability to generalize to the entire neighborhood. The measure used to assess racism in activity spaces had low internal consistency. While this limits claims that this measure is assessing a single latent construct measure is still useful to consider given its face validity and the fact that the alpha was impacted, but the limited number of items included and the lack of correlation between the positive and negatively worded items. More research needs to be done to establish a more reliable measure of racism in place. Hypothesizing indirect relationships implies causal ordering, making it necessary for the independent variable to occur prior to the intervening variable. In our study, both perceptions of activity spaces and momentary negative emotions were measured at the same time, precluding definitive claims that a negative emotion did not influence perceptions of location or that the association between them could not be explained by an exogenous variable, like a conflict with a loved one. Due to a low response rate on EMA, survey responses may not capture all exposures in a day, limiting our ability to understand the entirety of adolescents’ lived experiences. When examined further, EMA survey response locations encompassed 97% of all passive GPS data points when participants were in their home neighborhood suggesting an adequate coverage of activity spaces within the study neighborhood.

Conclusions

This study supports the assertion that Black adolescents’ perceptions and daily exposures to spaces are related to marijuana use and that some of these relationships may be explained by the level of negative emotion that an adolescent experience when they perceive a stressor or support. Focusing on the within-person effect in this study allows us to understand the role of daily exposures to spaces in emotion and health behaviors controlling for individual characteristics. While more research is needed to understand the temporal association between exposure to spaces and emotional responses, these findings lend support to the claim that limiting youths’ exposure to stressors and increasing their exposure to supports in activity spaces may reduce their level of negative momentary emotion and, therefore, their need to cope by using substances. Most substance use prevention programs have focused on changing individuals’ behavior without attending to the context in which the use is taking place or the fact that it may be used to cope with external stressors. This lack of attention to external stressors may limit the impact of substance use prevention efforts among Black youth, who experience a disproportionate number of stressors due to structural and interpersonal racism. Addressing Black youths’ exposure to violence, racism, and social support in activity spaces necessitates a more organizational, neighborhood, and societal approach to substance use prevention.

Highlights:

  • There is a correlation between Black adolescents spendings time in activity spaces that they perceive as having more violent or racist incidents and their marijuana use during the day reported at the end of the day.

  • Black adolescents’ perceptions of social support in activity spaces during a day indirectly relate to reports of marijuana use at the end of the day through momentary negative emotions during the day.

  • Negative momentary emotions explain the correlation between adolescents’ exposure to activity spaces they perceive to violent, and marijuana use that day reported at the end day.

Funding:

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Drug Abuse [K01DA041468].

Footnotes

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