Adolescent conduct problems: a biosocial model of risk

Antisocial behaviour among young people is currently of major public and policy concern. Research studies confirm this view: conduct problems compromise life-chances, impair relationships, and impose major economic burdens. They also impact on health. Indeed, of all child psychiatric disorders, studies suggest that conduct disorders carry the most widespread risk for poor mental health later in life. To offset these consequences we need to know more about the factors that put children and young people at risk. To date, most research has centred on conduct problems beginning early in childhood. Yet rates of antisocial behaviour rise sharply in the teens; a better understanding of contributors to this rise could hold major benefits. We propose to examine such contributors in two important longitudinal studies: the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime (ESYTC) and the Avon Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). Both studies have tracked large cohorts of young people across key phases of development ? ESYTC through the teens, and ALSPAC since infancy. Together, they make it possible to explore the roles of a wide range of potential risks for adolescent conduct problems: early temperament and behaviour; language and intellectual skills; social and communication skills; peer relationships and peer influences; family stressors and parenting; neighbourhood and school factors; and the biological, psychological and social changes that accompany puberty. In addition, we will use ALSPAC?s rich infancy and childhood data to investigate why some children with early histories of disruptive behaviour do not go on to show marked conduct problems in the teens. Current evidence suggests that though some ?recover?, many face a quite different pattern of difficulties marked by social isolation, poor functioning in adulthood, and increased risks of anxiety and low mood. These children may require specific interventions; this study will provide key pointers to their needs.

Rates of conduct problems rise sharply in the teens. Though less noxious than childhood onset disruptiveness, adolescent conduct problems - affecting a much wider segment of the population - nonetheless compromise later life-chances, impair relationships, and impact on both physical and mental health. Most worrying, our research suggests that levels of adolescent conduct problems have been rising in the UK across the last quarter of the 20th century, but that their implications for later adjustment remained unchanged.

Much is now known about risks for early childhood conduct problems. By contrast, risks for adolescent onset difficulties are less well understood. This proposal is designed to fill that gap, capitalizing on two key UK data sources:

First, it will build on the rich developmental data already collected in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). Beginning in pregnancy, ALSPAC has amassed extensive developmental, behavioural, psychological, biological and social data on a cohort of some 14,000 children. Born in 1991 and 92, the ALSPAC cohort are now entering the key risk period for adolescent onset conduct problems. We propose new data collection at ages 15-16 which, in conjunction with existing measures, we will use (i) to characterize trajectories of conduct problems across childhood and adolescence; (ii) to clarify risks for adolescent onset conduct problems; and (iii) to differentiate risk profiles of early onset disruptive behaviours that do and do not persist.

Second, we will use publically available data from the first four waves of the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime (ESYTC) to complement and replicate findings on adolescent sources of risk. Beginning in early adolescence, ESYTC has tracked a cohort of some 4300 young people annually from age 12, assessing individual, family and social influences on adolescent antisocial behaviour using measures closely compatible with those available and planned for use in ALSPAC.

Taken together, these two complementary data sources offer valuable opportunities to advance understanding of adolescent conduct problems and the factors most central to risk.