A Parent-Child Approach to Substance Abuse Prevention for Mexican American Youth

项目总结（见说明）： 拟议的研究将实施和测试一个创新的和非常重要的预防计划，通过整合现有的以学校为基础的家长计划与青年预防干预到一个新的以社区为基础的方法，以防止物质使用同化墨西哥遗产青年。本研究应用生态发展的方法，以加强家庭功能，减少青少年的文化适应压力，并提高青少年拒绝毒品的技能。干预措施将防止青年使用药物，作为减少健康差距的一种手段。指导性假设是，通过在社区环境中同步进行这两种干预措施，干预措施将产生更强有力的青年和家长所期望的成果，并将更具成本效益。这一假设将通过一项随机对照试验（RCT）在一个社区为基础的设置难以达到，服务不足和脆弱的拉丁美洲（主要是墨西哥遗产）家庭进行测试。RCT将比较1）对齐的父母-青少年干预，2）仅父母干预; 3）对照（照常治疗）。该研究将测试假设的介质（例如，家庭功能、育儿技能和社会支持）和调节因素（文化适应和文化适应压力）。研究结果将增加有关可持续和有效的社区预防的知识，以及克服西南和全国不断变化的社会和学校环境中存在的预防障碍的具体方法。

PROJECT SUMMARY (See instructions): The proposed study will implement and test an innovative and highly significant prevention program by integrating an existing school-based parent program with a youth prevention intervention into a new community-based approach to prevent substance use among acculturating Mexican heritage youth. This research applies the ecodevelopmental approach to strengthen family functioning, reduce youth's acculturative stress, and increase youth drug refusal skills. The intervention will prevent youth substance use as a means of reducing health disparities. The guiding hypothesis is that by synchronizing the two interventions in a community-based setting, the intervention will yield stronger youth and parent desired outcomes and will be more cost-effective. This hypothesis will be tested through a randomized control trial (RCT) in a community-based setting with hard-to-reach, underserved and vulnerable Latino (mostly of Mexican heritage) families. The RCT will compare 1) The aligned Parent-Youth intervention, with 2) The Parent-Only intervention; and 3) Control (treatment as usual). The study will test hypothesized mediators (e.g., family functioning, parenting skills and social support) and moderators (acculturation and acculturative stress) of the effectiveness of the program. The findings will increase knowledge about sustainable and efficacious community-based prevention and about specific approaches to overcome barriers to prevention that are present in the changing social and school environments of the Southwest and the nation.