Are kids who are popular and not smoking not drinking and are they influencers?

Dr. Allison Mathews: Is there ever a scenario where there are kids who are popular and not smoking not drinking and are they also influential in the other way?

Dr. Robert Faris: Yeah presumably they are because our model suggests that the two kids... One of the interesting questions that I think we may be able to explore is the direction of influence, but as of now in our analyzes, we find that the kids become more similar to their friends. Whatever their friend is doing, drinking not drinking, as of now, we estimate that effect to be equal. We weren't exploring that particular question, but we're following kids as they age through adolescence and these behaviors become more prevalent. So it appears to be that the alcohol use or substance use generally is spreading over time because they're getting older and there are more kids who are trying this.

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