Brief Intervention of Minority Adolescents

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Brief Intervention for Minority Adolescent Drinkers" is a five-year research project designed to develop and test a developmentally and culturally sensitive, school-based, brief intervention for high risk African-American and Hispanic/Latino adolescent drinkers enrolled in alternative high schools. Alternative school students report (a) earlier first drink, first time drunk, and first marijuana use, (b) more polysubstance use, and (c) more frequent and heavy use of illicit substances than traditional high school students. In addition, alternative school students are disproportionately from ethnic/cultural minority groups, and very little empirical research has examined the effectiveness of alcohol or other drug interventions for minorities of any age. The primary goal of the proposed research is to conduct a randomized clinical trial evaluating the efficacy of a developmentally and culturally congruent school-based motivational interviewing intervention with alcohol abusing alternative school students. Participants (n = 540) will be randomly assigned to two treatment conditions: (1) assessment plus a motivational interviewing feedback session (A+MI) or (2) assessment plus a brief advice session (A+BA). Participants will be evaluated at study entry, and at three-month, six-month and nine-month follow-ups. We hypothesize that adolescents assigned to A+MI will demonstrate significantly greater reductions in alcohol use than adolescents assigned to (A+BA). Additional study aims will examine the moderating effects of cultural and ethnic factors (e.g., perceived discrimination, cultural mistrust, acculturation, acculturation stress) on intervention response. The ultimate aim of the proposed study is to develop more effective interventions for high risk alternative school drinkers, particularly ethnic/cultural minority adolescents.