TEC Research
- Our Youth, Our Future Study: Research tracking the substance use of American Indian (AI) youth who live on or near AI reservations since 1974.
The Tri-Ethnic Center for Prevention Research at Colorado State University has been monitoring American Indian youth substance use behaviors and their correlates for over 30 years. Each year the Center surveys a sample of 7th – 12th grade American Indian students who live on or near reservations about their drug and alcohol use, attitudes toward substance use, and many other variables. This study has been funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Below is a summary of selected recent findings.
Findings from this study demonstrate that American Indian adolescents who reside on or near reservations continue a trend of using nearly all substances at substantially higher rates than adolescents from a nationally representative sample from Monitoring the Future. (read article)
Significant differences in substance use patterns between reservation American Indian students and white students attending the same schools were found, and combinations of substances used by American Indian adolescents were most likely to include marijuana, as compared with alcohol for white adolescents. (read article)
The results provide further evidence that AI youth living on or near reservations initiate substance use significantly earlier than white youth who attend the same schools and live in the same communities, with evidence being strongest for marijuana initiation. (read article)
Substance use prevalence rates for AI students were significantly higher than national rates for nearly all substances, especially for 8th graders. Rates of marijuana use were very high, with lifetime use higher than 50% for all grades. (read article)
Identical latent classes of substance use were found between American Indian middle school and high school students, with early initiation and peer factors strongly predictive of class membership. (read article)
This study examined predictors of both recreational and peyote use among American Indian youth, with current alcohol and marijuana predictive of each, but more strongly related to recreational use. (read article)
LCA identified two classes of drinking motives among American Indian 7-12th grade students on reservations, those drinking to cope and enhance other experiences, and low motive drinkers. The coping and enhancement class of drinkers reported higher perceived discrimination, ethnic identity, and heavy episodic drinking than the low motives class. (read article)
SEM analysis indicated that outcome expectancies fully mediated the relationships between both anger and family conflict and alcohol involvement, but only between anger and alcohol involvement among high school American Indian youth on reservations. (read article)
Findings suggest that normative perceptions and perceived harm are antecedents of marijuana use/consequences and are prime targets for large scale interventions on AI reservations. (read article)
Descriptive and injunctive norms were distinctly and directly associated with lifetime, last month, and frequent marijuana use, with family injunctive norms showing a strong relationship to use and moderating the relationship between descriptive norms and lifetime and last month use. (read article)
Family structure, parental monitoring, family conflict, and family sanctions against marijuana use were found to be strongly related to lifetime and current marijuana use among both American Indian and white students who live on reservations. (read article)
Perceived social benefits failed to moderate the relationship between social influence variables (school attachment, peer inhalant use, perceived family caring, parental monitoring) and stage of inhalant initiation (early or late), and lifetime inhalant use. Once exception for lifetime inhalant use was that low perceived social benefits provided greater protection against the influence of peers on lifetime inhalant use among White students, while high perceived social benefits increased risk of peer influence among American Indian students. (read article)
Depression and anger did not discriminate between early and later initiation of inhalants among both American Indian and white youth from reservations. Lower self-esteem related to earlier initiation, but only among American Indian students and perceived emotional benefits of inhalant use did not moderate the relationship between self-esteem and stage of initiation. (read article)
Findings suggested that self-determination (SD), and more proximally, perceived consequences of substance use for autonomy, may be particularly useful promotive factors to target substance use prevention in American Indian (AI) adolescents. Culturally congruent interventions designed to promote SD and autonomous motivations to abstain may be particularly impactful within a young AI adolescent population, as early adolescence represents a critical period of development for personal autonomy and identity. (read article)
American Indian (AI) youth living on or near reservations have much in common with other youth, including high future aspirations, involvement in activities and hobbies, and influence from family and friends. At the same time, there were important differences in the experiences, environment, and values of these AI youth, including emphasis on different types of activities, a more collectivist cultural orientation, tribal identity and pride, and the importance of extended families. (read article)
This paper presents a case for increased health promotion, prevention, and treatment research with Indigenous populations, providing context to the recent NIH investment in the Intervention Research to Improve Native American Health (IRINAH) network. (read article)
A systematic review characterized and synthesized applications of the Community Readiness Tool and synthesised quantitative results for readiness applications at multiple time points. (read article)
The purpose of this study was to develop, test and validate a more efficient online version of an existing community readiness tool and identify potential problems in completing assessments. Concurrent validity for the online method was supported for the Leadership dimension only. However, the online method holds promise as it reduces time and resource burden. (read article)
The purpose of this paper is to, with increasing recognition of the importance of upstream factors in individual behavior, provide an example of how the Community Readiness Model (CRM) was used as a tool to understand the barriers within the broader environment to achieving reductions in the use of alcohol by college students and how this resulted in identifying upstream social marketing strategies. (read article)