Ruth W. Edwards - US grants

A local drug use survey can stimulate community action in the fight against drugs, and enhance prevention by providing base-line data so drug action groups can tell whether they are reducing drug use. We will develop a new technology that provides a complete and very economical service. We will test, in both minority and non-minority populations, an OPSCAN drug survey that is economical to print and ship. We will produce reports for communities that accurately present drug use data, communicate effectively with non-scientists, and are highly impactful. The survey produces the usual data on drug use rates and classifies youth into drug use types -- a more accurate and useful method for describing youth drug involvement and one unique to our survey. Computer software allows reports to be prepared completely by computer and directly from raw data, including tables, local and national comparisons, and interpretive statements. Computer-produced graphics include newspaper ready glossies, overhead transparencies, and 35mm slides. Computer-produced outlines for presentations and question and answer sets for radio and TV programs are included. A Community Action Manual provides utilization advice. Finally, we will develop and thoroughly test marketing methods to determine how best to sell our service to communities.

The goal is to develop, produce and market a self-report instrument, the CLINICAL DRUG ABUSE SCALE, a tool for counseling drug using clients. It provides a profile of involvement with every type of drug, and classified clients into styles or types based on overall pattern of drug use. An age of first use chart shows when use of each drug was initiated. The test also assess a wide range of social and personal characteristics related to drug use, personal/emotional and social problems; school adjustment; family relationships; parent's drug use; socioeconomic opportunity; deviance; contexts of drug use; peer encouragement; potency of peer sanctions; reasons for use; and beliefs about drug dangers. During this project, the test will be improved and marketed. Additional data will be obtained on reliability and validity for drug treatment clients. A test manual will be prepared. Counselor training workshops and videotapes will be developed and tested. A marketing study will be done. In addition to improving counseling, the project will eventually yield ongoing epidemiology data on drug treatment clients and be a base for studies of the correlates of drug use and of treatment effectiveness.

DESCRIPTION: (Applicant's Abstract) This project will provide detailed data on alcohol and drug use and associated risk factors among rural youth. Surveys will be administered to 7th-12th grade students in a national sample of rural schools stratified by region and rurality (county population and distance from a metropolitan center) with a comparison sample of non-rural schools. Schools that are African-American and Mexican-American will be oversampled. (Comparable data on drug use of American Indian youth, the other major rural ethnic minority group, will be available from another project.) The study will also obtain data on violence, victimization, high risk drug use behaviors, and delinquency and their relationship to drug use. The study will use structural equation modeling to examine how individual risk factors relate to drug use and delinquency of rural youth and determine whether there are differences in those relationships by age, gender, ethnicity, and rurality. Individual risk factors include socialization characteristics such as family relationships, parental monitoring, school adjustment and peer influences, personal characteristics such as excitement/risk seeking, anger, emotional distress, tolerance of deviance and social alienation, and cultural identification. The study will use hierarchical linear modeling to determine how differences in drug use rates across schools are related to different levels of personal and social risk factors among students in those schools and to community and school characteristics including school structure, school normlessness, poverty, ethnic heterogeneity, ascriptive inequality, community industrial structure, age structure, population mobility, and family disorganization, and whether these relationships differ by rurality.

Project II: This project will determine, for the first time, whether there are differences in how school and community characteristics are related to drug use rates in rural ethnic minority communities. The first part of the project is a secondary data analysis, combining existing data from two sources, (1) a survey of a stratified random sample of 180 rural communities across the U.S. and (2) a survey of 30 rural African American and 30 rural Mexican American communities. The surveys in these communities provide data on drug use by 7th through 12th grade students, as well as data on social and psychological risk factors for drug use and cultural identification. Information on school and community characteristics will be available from the census (including the past census and a census that will be run during the course of this project), from the School Data Book and from telephone interviews with key informants in each community. Except for the new census, the data collection for phase I, the secondary data analysis, will be complete by the time this project begins. Community characteristics include rurality and is9lation, poverty, education level and dropout, crime and violence, community instability, community cohesiveness and attachment, industrial structure, family disorganization, family cohesiveness and extended family, religious heterogeneity, ethnic heterogeneity, age structure, and gender normals and roles. Hierarchical linear modeling will be used to determine how community characteristics relate to drug use and how these relationships may differ in ethnic minority communities. The second phase of the study will determine, for the first time, how community characteristics relate to change in drug use rates in rural communities and whether there are differences related to ethnic minority communities. The study will involve two waves of re-surveying, one three years and one five years after the initial survey. Resurveyed will be the 30 African American and 30 Mexican American communities and a matched sample of 30 non-minority communities. The surveys and survey methods are identical for all waves. Hierarchical linear modeling will be used to determine how characteristics of these rural communities related to changes in drug use over time.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The prevalence of inhalant use among pre-adolescents in rural ethnic minority and non-minority communities will be examined as well as information on how family, peer, school, community and cultural factors may correlate with inception of inhalant use. The project is multi-dimensional, multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural (American Indian, Mexican- American, African American, Asian American and non-minority) and uses multiple methodologies for achieving its goals. An innovative aspect of this project is that data will be collected both from children, parents and other adults in rural communities where inhalant use has been found to be relatively high (Mexican American, American Indian and non minority) as well as in communities where inhalant use has generally been found to be low (African American and Asian American). Thus, examination of individual risk and protective factors as well as cultural beliefs and practices that may be related to initiation of inhalant use will be possible. The Community Readiness Model posits that community efforts must match the community's level of readiness to deal with the problem in order to be effective. This model will guide development of appropriate resources for communities to utilize at each stage of community readiness. The project has seven interrelated studies: (I) Assessment of Community Readiness in rural and minority communities and Community Readiness workshops to develop culturally appropriate strategies for prevention; (II) Analyses of existing data on inhalant use and correlates among 7th-12th graders; (III) Focus groups with parents and other adults to gather information on parenting styles, cultural values and attitudes, and knowledge of inhalant use issues; (IV, V & VI) Survey to gather information on prevalence and correlates of inhalant use of 4th-8th graders in rural communities with populations of the following ethnicities: (IV) Mexican American, African American and non-minority; (V) non-reservation American Indian; and (VI) Asian American; and (VII) Compilation and evaluation of existing inhalant prevention materials; testing of acceptability and appropriateness of these materials in high risk rural communities; and development of materials where needed. We will then utilize findings of this project to develop a compendium of inhalant prevention resources, materials and strategies appropriate for use in rural and ethnic minority communities based on each community's stage of readiness to address the issue.

Summary: The Tri-Ethnic Center for Prevention Research is designed to be a national resource for research on the prevention of drug abuse, with a special emphasis on ethnic minority and rural youth. The Center will continue to be a primary access point for scientists and policy makers for information about drug abuse in rural and rural ethnic minority populations, including African Americans, and American Indians, and will continue to provide dissemination and technology transfer for field workers in ethnic minority communities. The Center is multi-disciplinary and has served as a source for research based theory that cuts across academic disciplines. The Center has a long history of research on the etiology of drug use in ethnic minority groups. During this proposed project, it will determine how community and school characteristics influence local rates of adolescent drug use in rural, ethnic minority communities The Center has a long history of research on the etiology if drug use in ethnic minority groups. During this proposed project, it will determine how community and school characteristics influence local rates of adolescent drug use in rural, ethnic minority communities and it will explore how cultural, social, and psychological characteristics interact to produce drug abuse among rural ethnic minority youth. The Center also has a history of research that tests prevention interventions, including evaluating school-based prevention programs, testing methods for community change in rural ethnic minority communities, testing the use of media in rural communities, and testing cognitive behavioral treatments aimed at individual traits that are risk factors. During this proposed project it will test three types of prevention programs growing out of Center research: (1) a state-wide initiative to reduce use of methamphetamines and other drugs, using the Center developed methods for producing change in rural communities; (2) media campaigns specifically tailored for rural ethnic minority communities to reduce adolescent tobacco use (and tests to determine whether environment of local peers enhances media effects); and (3) cognitive behavioral treatments that reduce trait anger, leading to reductions in substance use and, and more important, whether treatment reduces the violence and victimization that result form the combination of anger and substance use. The Center consists of a Core and five research projects. An abstract for each of the research components appears next before that part of the proposal.