Joint trajectories of victimization and marijuana use and their health consequences among urban African American and Puerto Rican young men

We examined the joint trajectories of violent victimization and marijuana use from emerging adulthood to the early thirties
and their health consequences in the early thirties among urban African American and Puerto Rican men. Data were collected
from a community sample of young men (N = 340) when they were 19, 24, 29, and 32 years old. The joint trajectories of violent victimization and marijuana use were
extracted using growth mixture modeling. Three distinct joint trajectory groups of violent victimization and marijuana use
were identified: high violent victimization/consistently high marijuana use; low violent victimization/increasingly high marijuana
use, and low violent victimization/low marijuana use. Group comparisons using regression analyses showed that men who had
experienced high levels of violent victimization and were high frequency marijuana over time users experienced the most adverse
psychological and physical health outcomes, including more health problems, psychological maladjustment, and substance use
disorders.