Social Networks among Drug-Using Ethnic Minority Youth

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DESCRIPTION: (provided by applicant) This one-year study seeks to analyze the use of social networks by Southeast Asian youth and young adults in multiethnic urban areas to obtain drugs and information about drugs. Differences between older immigrants and younger first- and second-generation members of U.S. Southeast Asian communities in the types of drugs used and contexts of drug use may indicate increased inter-actions between the younger generation Southeast Asian and neighboring drug-users of other ethnicities. An analysis of social networks can establish whether Southeast Asians interact with youth from other ethnicities relative to types of drugs used, means of obtaining drugs, and ideas and information about drugs. I propose to conduct open-ended interviews with twelve drug-using Southeast Asians, aged 16-23, from one multi-ethnic urban neighborhood in California?s Bay Area. This study represents an initial stage in analyzing risks associated with peer groups and neighborhood environment in the acculturation process of drug-using Southeast Asian youths. The present study will specifically investigate: o How drug-using Southeast Asians obtain drugs and information about drug use; o Whether the social networks of drug-using Southeast Asian youth are primarily same- or poly-ethnic; and o Whether this differs for first- compared to second-generation drug-using Southeast Asians.