Personal tools
Document Actions

P20 Health Research Studies and Pilot

This research is funded by the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD) within the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Grant: 1P20MD002316

.........................................................................................................................

Parent Component

A Supplemental Parent Education Intervention to Enhance the Efficacy of keepin’ it REAL

This study examines the effects of enhancing the quality of the parent-child relationship as a general approach for improving family function and youth skill building to reduce youth risks of alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use.  Family disruption, often a consequence of acculturative adaptation and acculturative stress frequently operates as a pathway to adverse health outcomes among Latino/Hispanic and other minority families and their children.  Recent perspectives on ways to address high-risk lifestyles has encouraged strengthening families given that families serve as sources of support, guidance, and problem solving that can directly discourage youth from using alcohol, tobacco and drugs, and from engaging in risk behaviors.  Eliminating or reducing risk factors while enhancing protective factors constitutes a known approach for preventing the early use of alcohol and tobacco, the subsequent use of illegal drugs, and the conduct of other risk behaviors that promote illness and disability.  By strengthening parent-child communication and promoting adaptive family function, the strategy of teaching parental problem solving to Latino/Hispanic parents can promote effective acculturation and integration into mainstream American social networks.  As parents exercise culturally relevant parenting skills that are consistent with promoting the health and well-being of their children, they can serve as direct sources of influence in reducing their children’s risks for using alcohol, tobacco, illegal drugs, and for engaging in other health-compromising behaviors. The proposed research will adapt a culturally relevant parenting program for Latino families, while also gathering new information on critical life issues affecting Latino/Hispanic and other minority parents and their children. This new information can be used to understand better the challenges to healthy adaptation among diverse types of Latino parents and families, information that can be used in testing a variety of multivariate models of resilience and healthy adjustment.  This can also contribute to building culturally sensitive theory of adaptive family function and its effects in developing Latino adolescent children’s skills in avoiding substance use and other risk behaviors.  Such culturally informed theory and models can inform the design and implementation of culturally relevant and more effective interventions to avoid familial and individual dysfunction, and thus to strengthen families and to contribute towards reducing health disparities among Hispanic/Latino and other minority families and their children.

AMERICAN INDIAN PROJECT

Culturally-Specific Substance Abuse Prevention for Urban American Indian Youth

Morbidity and mortality rates of many preventable conditions are disproportionately high in many American Indian (AI) populations. Well documented health disparities for AI adults and youth related to abuse of alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drugs extend to the growing urban AI population, who now constitute over 60% of the total AI population. AI youth report higher rates, earlier onset, more severe consequences, yet less perceived risk of harm of substance use compared to their non-native counterparts. To thwart the early onset and aftermath of substance abuse, primary prevention efforts have been undertaken with AI youth in several U.S. regions. But programs have not explicitly targeted urban AI youth using rigorous culturally grounded prevention methods. The proposed study draws upon the project team's research on the etiology of substance use among AI youth of the urban southwest to conduct translational research that recognizes salient risk and resiliency factors identified by these youth, social and relational contexts that expose them to substances, and their culturally appropriate drug resistance strategies. The first aim of the study is to create a culturally grounded substance abuse prevention intervention targeting urban AI youth in 7th and 8th grades through a modification of a SAMHSA Model universal prevention program, keepin it REAL. The adaptation will employ emerging principles for adapting programs for new target populations in ways that increase cultural fit while maintaining fidelity to core program components. The intervention will be adapted, piloted, evaluated, culturally validated, and revised accordingly.  A second aim is to test the feasibility and efficacy of the adapted substance abuse prevention intervention in a randomized control trial (RCT). Ecodevelopmental Theory provides the framework for understanding key influences on AI youths’ substance use.  Participatory action research methods will be used to adapt the intervention, including focus groups with key AI informants (adults and youth), working in collaboration with the designers of the original intervention and in coordination with the area's largest provider of social services to urban Indians. The RCT will be conducted in existing groups for AI students enrolled in urban school districts. The resulting prevention intervention will address the needs of an under-served group severely affected by health disparities, and advance knowledge on effective translational research strategies for adapting prevention interventions for ethnically diverse youth.

ADD HEALTH

Pilot Study: Longitudinal pathways linking acculturation and family factors to risky sexual behavior, substance use and depressive symptoms among Mexican-American and Chinese-American youth

Utilizing data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), the proposed pilot study aims to examine level of acculturation and family factors in relation to Mexican-American and Chinese-American youth’s risky sexual behavior, substance use and depressive symptoms over time. HIV/STDs, substance use and mental health disorders have disproportionately affected racial and ethnic minorities, thus the critical need to develop effective culturally appropriate interventions to prevent these serious health problems.  Gaps in prior research include research on Chinese- Americans (perhaps because of the “model minority” assumption); and, a focus on protective factors. Finally, Mexican and Chinese cultures are family-oriented there is very little understanding about how family factors interact with adolescents’ acculturation level to influence their risky sexual behavior, substance use, and depressive symptoms over time among these groups.

Familias Sanas

Familias Sanas (Healthy Families), is a study housed under the umbrella of the Research Core. This study aims at increasing Latino mothers’ utilization of interconception care through a culturally grounded educational intervention as a means to reduce their health disparities connected to their lack of timely medical care and prevention. Understanding cultural factors that influence the experience of healthcare is key to reducing barriers to quality health care access. The project is a partnership between SIRC and the Maricopa Integrated Health System, which operates the Maricopa County Medical Center.  Four master’s level and one Ph.D. level bilingual and bicultural students are part of this study. 

Familias Sanas Study is funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Hispanic Research Initiative. Grant: 1 H0 CMS 030207-01