In the past year, 25% of EA ages 18–24 have initiated/increased cannabis use in response to negative stress and emotions – the steepest rise in use across all queried age groups; further, 43% of EA reported past year cannabis use, the highest rate observed in 35 years . While the literature supports important links between negative affect and social in- equality , as well as between negative affect and cannabis use , there is a gap in our understanding of how these processes interact with each other to contribute to EA cannabis use, as well as in our understanding of the cognitive and developmental neuroscience behind these relationships.For example, during some phases of development, social inequality may directly alter emotion and regulatory networks to increase risk. At other stages, objective and subjective social inequality may increase cannabis grow system use risk either via direct influences or as contextual moderators of risk .
Further, effects of objective and subjective inequality may be additive or themselves interact. Future research would benefit from incorporating metrics of subjective experiences of social inequality in addition to the widely used “objective ”metrics such as zip code, income, parent education, employment, and environmental instability when studying relationships to EA hazardous cannabis use. In addition, differentiating the multi-component processes of emotion regulation and studying the constituent parts may elucidate behavioral, functional, and neural correlates that have implications for EA decision-making risk in “high-stakes ”emotional contexts like cannabis use . We are extremely far from understanding the potential neurodevelopmental and socio-emotional resilience factors in these equations . As clinicians and clinical scientists, operating without these data directly obstructs our capacity to identify essential risk/protective factors of EA socio-emotional health in a way that meaningfully helps providers prevent and intervene with EA cannabis use .
Of even greater relevance and salience, data to help elucidate meaningful neuro-developmental mechanisms of experienced subjective and objective social inequality are essential to informing and advancing better prevention and intervention approaches for underserved EA . In terms of potential future directions, noting of course that these relationships may not only be due to environment, but can be exacerbated in diathesis:stress contexts, recent studies have highlighted the importance of examining day-to-day shifts in mood and anxiety symptoms, both in terms of cannabis use risk and resilience in this age group , and also in terms of social interactions and prosocial behavior during experiences of subjective and objective social inequality and subsequent heightened stress for youth . Most important within these studies is the indication of the rapid and dynamic shifts that happen in mood and marijuana grow system use, on a day-to-day level in this age group, and the critical importance of capturing that variability within a platform such as ecological momentary assessment and/or daily diaries, which can accurately and flexibly capture these highly dynamic emotional and subjective and objective social inequality experiences .
These approaches facilitate the capture of dynamic variance across multiple levels of the human experience,as well as the cumulative consequences of persistent and/or ongoing experienced subjective and objective social inequality . Equally relevant to future evaluations, the study of experienced social inequality necessitates designs that combine idiographic methods to examine individual-level patterns of variability and change with more traditional nomothetic methods to examine patterns of differences be- tween groups . In this regard, Ong advocates for use of “daily process designs ”, which evaluate across a continuum of: experienced social inequality in near real-time; the tracking of changes in emotions, proximate to their incidents and moments of change; preservation of temporal sequences; and minimization of retrospection bias, in order to better capture the interactions between stressors , adaptive resources , and outcomes. Finally, in terms of future work, it is important to note that most EA do not move into full sustained cannabis use disorders. Evaluations that may be able to engage a longitudinal prospective research protocol to identify and uncover which EA are most protected from risk trajectories would be highly valuable for youth healthcare providers. Work that can help determine which neuro-developmental factors protect EA will be crucial to guide more impactful prevention and intervention programming for this age group –and would be invaluable to helping support young people thrive even amidst current and future emotional risk challenges.