Validity of Ethnic Identity and Adolescent Drug Use

描述(由申请人提供)：这项R21发展/探索性研究考察了社会和文化进程与一群少数民族青年早期吸毒的关系。迫切需要澄清影响青少年吸毒的社会和文化因素。研究人员一直无法完全基于我们目前对心理社会脆弱性的理解来对毒品流行率的种族和民族差异做出充分的解释。需要更详细地了解社会和文化力量的作用，因为它们影响健康行为的发展。然而，将身份认同过程与毒品使用联系起来的理论模型存在主要结构概念化不佳、依赖横断面设计以及缺乏利用身份认同过程的心理测量学精细化评估的缺陷。针对这些问题和相关问题，本研究的重点是：(1)在两组少数民族青年(N=300名初中生和N=300名高中生)中开发一种心理测量精细化的自我认同过程评估；(2)采用短纵向面板设计(N=2000)，对黑人、西班牙裔和白人青年的种族认同、心理社会风险和药物使用之间的结构关系进行前瞻性检验。对同一性的多维度评估的改进使用了利用记忆可及性(内隐认知任务，如单词配对)、验证性测量建模来评估因素和结构有效性的实验程序，以及利用面板数据和结构方程建模进行预测(标准)有效性的测试。这些实验技术提供了一种严格的方法来“解开”种族认同项目的含义和文化相关性，并确保它们在发展中的适当性。纵向建模提供了一种方法，当在更大的病因学框架中铸造时，识别身份机制的相对重要性。了解族裔/文化因素在吸毒病因中的作用，是建立和提供针对少数民族青年的注重文化的干预措施的重要步骤，有助于在病因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.