Youth Engagement: An Organization-Level Strategy to Prevent Opioid Misuse among Young Adults

阿片类药物滥用是美国年轻人中的一个主要公共卫生问题，是一种 农村社区的问题尤其突出。至关重要的是，预防阿片类药物滥用的努力服务于年轻人 人们往往不会有效地让他们参与进来。预防组织将受益于有效的青年 参与战略，将年轻人的声音纳入规划预防方案和政策。 此外，青壮年是积极社会发展的形成期；但不幸的是，许多年轻人 人们在社区中感到孤立，觉得自己无关紧要，缺乏有意义的机会 与社会接触，并与亲社会机构形成积极联系。预防组织缺乏 基于证据的战略，以调动年轻人可以带来的大量资源来加强 预防努力，增加其对青年人的意义和相关性；同时，青年人 可能面临滥用阿片类药物的风险，部分原因是孤立和缺乏有意义的参与机会 他们的社区。让年轻人为针对物质的预防组织做出贡献 使用阿片类药物可通过以下两条途径防止阿片类药物滥用：(1)环境途径 成年人通过改进预防工作影响社区系统和环境，以及(2)个人 加强青少年心理社会保护因素和降低风险的途径 预防工作。与NIDA的Hear倡议和2016-2020年战略计划目标2.2相一致，本K01 该提案旨在阐明青年参与的环境和个人途径 防止阿片类药物滥用。这个辅导式职业发展奖的研究部分将发展和 测试组织级别的预防策略，以有效整合有意义的青年参与 将机会转化为多组成部分的预防工作。该项目将确定基于哪个社区 预防组织，以及哪一类年轻人将从青年参与中受益最大 预防阿片类药物滥用战略(目标1)；制定组织一级的青年参与预防 制定战略并与一个以社区为基础的组织一起实施，以测试可行性和可接受性(目标2)； 并评估青年参与作为组织一级战略的初步效力 在小型试点随机对照试验中预防阿片类药物滥用(目标3)。本课程的培训部分 获奖将使我在(1)基于社区的系统和物质使用环境中培养关键技能 预防针对脆弱的年轻人；(2)农村地区年轻人滥用阿片类药物；(3) 预防干预发展；(4)随机临床试验研究。在来自一个 优秀的导师团队，这位K01将为我成为一名有技能的独立调查员做好充分的准备 开展研究，提出亟需的新战略，以缓解阿片类药物滥用的社会问题 在年轻人中。

Abstrac t Opioid misuse is a major public health issue among young adults in the United States and is an especially acute problem in rural communities. Critically, prevention efforts for opioid misuse that serve young people often do not effectively involve them. Prevention organizations would benefit from an effective youth engagement strategy to incorporate the voices of young people in planning prevention programs and policy. Further, young adulthood is a formative time for positive social development; but unfortunately, many young people feel isolated within communities, feel that they do not matter, and lack meaningful opportunities to engage with society and form positive connections with prosocial institutions. Prevention organizations lack evidence-based strategy to marshal the considerable resources that young adults can bring to strengthening prevention efforts by increasing their meaning and relevance for young adults; at the same time, young adults may be at risk for opioid misuse in part due to isolation and lack of meaningful opportunities for engagement in their communities. Engaging young people to contribute to the prevention organizations targeting substance use may prevent opioid misuse by targeting two pathways: (1) an environmental pathway whereby young adults affect community systems and settings through improving prevention efforts and (2) an individual pathway bolstering psychosocial protective factors and reducing risks for the young adults engaged in prevention efforts. Aligned with NIDA's HEAL initiative and the 2016-2020 strategic plan Objective 2.2, this K01 proposal seeks to elucidate the environmental and individual pathways through which youth engagement can prevent opioid misuse. The research component of this mentored career development award will develop and test an organization-level prevention strategy for effectively integrating meaningful youth engagement opportunities into multi-component prevention efforts. The project will identify which community-based prevention organizations, and which subset of young adults, would most benefit from youth engagement as a strategy for preventing opioid misuse (Aim 1); develop an organization-level youth engagement prevention strategy and implement it with one community-based organization to test feasibility and acceptability (Aim 2); and evaluate the preliminary effectiveness of youth engagement as an organization-level strategy for preventing opioid misuse in a small pilot randomized controlled trial (Aim 3). The training component of this award will allow me to develop critical skills in (1) community-based systems and settings for substance use prevention targeting vulnerable young adults; (2) opioid misuse among young adults in rural settings; (3) prevention intervention development; and (4) randomized clinical trials research. With guidance from an outstanding mentor team, this K01 will fully prepare me to become an independent investigator with the skills to carry out research yielding much-needed new strategies to mitigate the societal issue of opioid misuse among young adults.