The process of assisting a child to incorporate the patterns or customs of their surrounding culture is a learning experience that usually has a positive outcome.

But ASU researchers Flavio Marsiglia and Stephen Kulis have embarked on a study that challenges this theory when measuring drug use and the effectiveness of drug prevention programs in certain neighborhoods.

Marsiglia, foundation professor of cultural diversity and health with ASU’s School of Social Work, and Kulis, a professor of sociology at ASU, presented their ?findings during the third annual Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center (SIRC) “Evidence-Based Drug Research In Partnership with Communities” conference, held April 29 in Tempe.

Kulis and Marsiglia say their ?findings provide information that leads to better development of drug resistance programs in Arizona schools.

“Our studies examine whether ethnicity, acculturation and ethnic identity moderate the effects of a culturally grounded substance-use prevention intervention for Mexican and Mexican-American middle-school students in Phoenix,” says Marsiglia, who also is SIRC’s director. “The main hypothesis is that prevention pro-grams will vary in effectiveness, depending on the degree to which they are culturally consistent with the student’s ethnic background and acculturation status.

”Data for their series of studies came from a randomized trial of a substance-use prevention program called “keepin’ it REAL,” which was administered to a predominantly Mexican-American sample of more than 6,000 middle-school students in Phoenix beginning in 1998.

The original study was conducted in partner-ship with researchers from Penn State University and was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). The “keepin’ it REAL (Refuse, Explain, Avoid, Leave)” program received an excellence award by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA) in January, and is one of 22 prevention programs recognized by SAMSHA.

“Community partners were able to identify that proper representation of culture of origin in prevention messages, produced more effective-ness in prevention intervention,” says Marsiglia of the “keepin’ it REAL” program. “They recommended to us that the ‘keepin’ it REAL’ campaign be taken to local governments to seek broader adoption of this program.

”Since then, Marsiglia says, additional requests have been made by social services agencies and school districts, mostly in metropolitan Phoenix and Tucson. In addition, requests have been made by communities in Texas, mostly Houston and border towns. “keepin’ it REAL” since has been licensed by ASU and Penn State University and distributed through a national campaign by ETR Publishing.

“The Next Generation Study” picks up where “keepin’ it REAL” left off. Marsiglia, Kulis and their team examined how a student’s acculturation status, neighborhood characteristics and school ethnic composition affect program efficacy for “keepin’ it REAL.”

“The reason for its name is that it addresses the next generation of questions about culture and prevention,” Marsiglia says.

“The Next Generation Study” also was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and focuses on the importance of cultural identity and cultural context in prevention. The study was conducted using data collected from the 35 middle schools in the “keepin’ it REAL” randomized trial, and matched data about their neighborhoods and schools, utilizing the U.S. Census of 2000 and crime rate data provided by Phoenix. The schools mostly were located in the south and central parts of Phoenix.

Findings showed that “keepin’ it REAL” was particularly effective at preventing substance use among highly acculturated Latino students who were found to be initiating drug use at much higher rates than their less-acculturated peers. Effects at the neighborhood and school level showed that the possible benefits of being less acculturated or bicultural operate community-wide.

Findings at the school level echo the neighbor-hood findings. When schools had a high enroll-met of recent Mexican immigrant students, the less-acculturated Latino students reported lower overall drug use rates, and the “keepin’ it REAL” prevention program was more effective for them. In essence, the program was more effective in schools with many children from monolingual Spanish families.

Marsiglia and Kulis say many of the families that come to Phoenix from rural areas in Sinaloa and Sonora have very traditional anti-drug values that protect the children against drug use.

“These parents also are very involved in the lives of their children,” Kulis says. “As the children become more acculturated, they are placed at risk of increased drug use as their social networks expand.

”Marsiglia says a communication barrier may be the cause for this increase in drug use.“Adults learn English at a slower pace,” he says. “This will create a communication gap between the parent and the child.

”SIRC will be sharing findings from this and other ongoing studies during their brown-bag series, which will continue in the fall 2005 – 2006 semester, and is scheduled tentatively at noon, on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month, at the SIRC offices. For more in-formation about the Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center, call (480) 965-4699 or visit the Web at (www.sirc.asu.edu).

Romero, with Marketing & Strategic Communications, can be reached at (480) 727-3116 or (mlromero@asu.edu).