Objective: The ability to determine the geographic locations of illicit drug markets is central to the development of preventive interventions that address access to drugs and associated problems, such as violence and crime.
Method: The current study examined individual self-reports of drug activities and demographic information obtained from two waves of a telephone survey of 1704 individuals aged 15 to 29 conducted in 1999 and 2001 across 95 census tracts in a Northern California city and measures of neighborhood characteristics derived from Census 2000 measures.
Results: The results of the study showed that, at the individual level, younger people and male respondents reported most drug activities. At the aggregate level, neighborhood poverty was directly related to higher rates of drug activity. Residential stability was found to moderate reports of drug activity observed by African-Americans and young people.
Conclusion: Social processes reflected in neighborhood characteristics of census tracts influence rates of self-reports of individuals' exposures to drug activities.