Validity of Ethnic Identity and Adolescent Drug Use

描述（由申请人提供）：本R21发展/探索性研究探讨了少数民族青年群体中社会和文化过程与早期吸毒的关系。非常需要澄清影响青少年吸毒的社会和文化因素。研究人员还不能完全基于我们目前对社会心理脆弱性的理解，对药物流行的种族和民族差异作出充分的解释。需要对社会和文化力量的作用有更详细的了解，因为它们影响健康行为的发展。然而，将认同过程与药物使用联系起来的理论模型存在主要构式概念化不佳、依赖于横断面设计以及缺乏针对认同过程的心理测量学精细评估。针对这些和相关的问题，目前的研究重点是：(1)在两个少数民族青年队列（N=300名初中和N=300名高中）中开发一种心理测量学上的自我认同过程的精细评估；(2)使用短纵向面板设计（N=2000组合）前瞻性地测试种族认同，心理社会风险和药物使用之间的结构关系。多维身份评估的改进使用实验程序，利用记忆可及性（内隐认知任务，如单词配对），验证性测量模型来评估因子和结构效度，以及利用结构方程模型面板数据的预测（标准）效度测试。实验技术提供了一种严谨的手段来“拆解”种族认同项目的意义和文化相关性，并确保其发展的适当性。纵向建模提供了一种在更大的病因学框架中辨别身份机制的相对重要性的方法。了解民族/文化因素在药物使用病因学中的作用是构建和提供针对少数民族青年的文化干预措施的必要步骤，并将有助于在病因学和预防之间建立必要的桥梁。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This R21 developmental/exploratory study examines the relations of social and cultural processes to early-stage drug use in a cohort of ethnic minority youth. There exists a tremendous need to clarify the social and cultural factors that influence drug use in adolescence. Researchers have not been able to develop adequate explanations of racial and ethnic differences in drug prevalence based entirely on our current understanding of psychosocial vulnerability. More detailed knowledge is required regarding the role of social and cultural forces as they influence development of health behaviors. However, theoretical models linking identity processes with drug use suffer from poor conceptualization of major constructs, reliance on cross-sectional designs, and a shortage of psychometrically refined assessments tapping identity processes. In response to these and related concerns, the current study focuses on: (1) developing a psychometrically refined assessment of self-identity processes in two cohorts of ethnic minority youth (N=300 middle school and N=300 high school) and (2) prospectively testing the structural relations between ethnic identity, psychosocial risk, and drug use using a short-longitudinal panel design (N=2000 combined) with black, Hispanic, and white youth. Refinement of a multi-dimensional assessment of identity uses experimental procedures that tap memory accessibility (implicit cognition tasks such as word pairings), confirmatory measurement modeling to assess factorial and construct validity, and tests of predictive (criterion) validity utilizing panel data with structural equation modeling. The experimental techniques provide a rigorous means to "unpack" the meaning and cultural relevance of ethnic identity items and to insure their developmental appropriateness. The longitudinal modeling provides a means to discern the relative importance of identity mechanisms when cast in a larger etiological framework. Understanding the role of ethnic/cultural factors in the etiology of drug use is an essential step in the construction and delivery of culturally focused interventions targeting ethnic minority youth and will help to forge a necessary bridge between etiology and prevention.