Evidence suggests that youth progressively experience mental health needs and discover mental health symptoms for the first time in adolescence. Schools have come to the forefront of providing mental health services, as adolescents spend most of their day in the academic setting. The current study aimed to examine individual and school-level…

Marijuana is the most widely used illegal drug, and the use of marijuana has been linked to a wide array of maladaptive outcomes. As a result, there is great interest in identifying the factors that are associated with the use of marijuana and with desistance from marijuana. The current study employed a life-course framework to examine the factors…

Despite the well-established association between adolescent sexual activity and delinquent behavior, little research has examined the potential importance of relationship contexts in moderating this association. The current study used longitudinal, behavioral genetic data on 519 same-sex twin pairs (48.6% female) divided into two age cohorts…

The aim of this research is to assess if home firearm access increases the risk of nonfatal suicidal attempts among adolescents. Such a gun focus has largely been limited to case-control studies on completed suicides. This line of research has found that household gun access increases the risk of suicide due to features of available firearms…

Intimate partner violence (IPV) constitutes the majority of assaults against women in the United States, and greater than one third of female homicide victims are murdered by an intimate partner. In a small percentage of cases, battered women kill their abusers, and evidence of battering and its effects may be used to support a plea of…