Table 1.

Sociodemographic characteristics and syndemic factors investigated as risk factors for substance use problems.

	Female (n = 1,203)	Male (n = 1,650)	Total (n = 2,853)	p-Valuea
	Mean (SD)/%	Mean (SD)/%	Mean (SD)/%
Background characteristics
Age in years	37.2 (12.0)	39.0 (12.2)	38.2 (12.2)	<0.001
African-American, not Hispanic	77.6	72.5	74.7	0.002
Latino/Hispanic	22.3	27.4	25.2	0.003
Married or in long-term relationship	41.3	29.5	34.5	<0.001
Portion of income includes gov’t benefits	34.1	28.2	30.7	0.001
Currently has health insurance	90.5	81.1	85.1	<0.001
Syndemic factors
High school diploma or equivalent or higher	60.3	63.4	62.1	0.101
Not engaged in full-time or part-time work currently	62.3	72.8	68.4	<0.001
Ever homeless	55.8	58.2	57.2	0.251
Currently homeless	17.9	23.3	21.0	<0.001
Ever been incarcerated for >24 h	41.4	74.4	60.5	<0.001
Incarcerated in the past year for >24 h	11.4	30.3	22.3	<0.001
Unable to pay for necessities in past year	40.6	46.8	44.2	0.001
Low health literacy	14.6	16.7	15.8	0.133
Clinically significant symptoms of depression (CESD)	31.2	28.7	29.8	0.159
Emotional support	70.7	62.2	65.8	<0.001
Instrumental support	59.9	53.3	56.1	<0.001
Substance use
Any drug use in the past month	26.6	36.4	32.3	<0.001
Drug use frequency past month (0–8)	1.0 (2.1)	1.5 (2.5)	1.3 (2.4)	<0.001
Ever injected drugs not for a medical reason	5.7	10.8	8.7	<0.001
Injected drugs in the past month	0.5	1.8	1.3	0.002
Meets AUDIT criterion for alcohol problem—past year	24.9	25.3	25.1	0.827
Meets TCU criterion for drug problem—past year	14.0	25.1	20.4	<0.001
Primary outcome
Meets criteria for substance use problem—past year	32.1	38.4	35.7	<0.001

^aFemales and males were compared by independent samples t-tests or Fisher’s exact test.