National Institute on Drug Abuse RESEARCH MONOGRAPH SERIES Drug Abuse Among Minority Youth: Methodological Issues and Recent Research Advances 130 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services • Public Health Service • National Institutes of Health Drug Abuse Among Minority Youth: Advances in Research and Methodology Editors: Mario R. De La Rosa, Ph.D. Division of Epidemiology and Prevention Research National Institute on Drug Abuse and Juan-Luis Recio Adrados, Ph.D. Visiting Research Scientist National Institute on Drug Abuse Universidad Complutense Madrid, Spain NIDA Research Monograph 130 1993 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES Public Health Service National Institutes of Health National Institute on Drug Abuse 5600 Fishers Lane Rockville, MD 20857 ACKNOWLEDGMENT This monograph is based on the papers and discussions from a technical review on “Epidemiologic Drug Abuse Research on Minority Youth: Methodological Issues and Recent Research Advances” held on July 17-18, 1991, in Bethesda, MD. The technical review was sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). COPYRIGHT STATUS NIDA has obtained permission from the copyright holders to reproduce certain previously published material as noted in the text. Further reproduction of this copyrighted material is permitted only as part of a reprinting of the entire publication or chapter. For any other use, the copyright holder’s permission is required. All other material in this volume except quoted passages from copyrighted sources is in the public domain and may be used or reproduced without permission from the Institute or the authors. Citation of the source is appreciated. Opinions expressed in this volume are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or official policy of the National Institute on Drug Abuse or any other part of the US. Department of Health and Human Services. The U.S. Government does not endorse or favor any specific commercial product or company. Trade, proprietary, or company names appearing in this publication are used only because they are considered essential in the context of the studies reported herein. NIDA Research Monographs are indexed in the “Index Medicus.” They are selectively included in the coverage of “American Statistics Index,” “Biosciences Information Service,” “Chemical Abstracts,” “Current Contents,” “Psychological Abstracts,” and “Psychopharmacology Abstracts.” National Institute on Drug Abuse NIH Publication No. 93-3479 Printed 1993 ii Contents Page Introduction and Overview 1 Mario R. De La Rosa, Juan-Luis Recio Adrados, and Norweeta Milburn THEORETICAL ISSUES Integrating Mainstream and Subcultural Explanations of Drug Use Among Puerto Rican Youth 8 Orlando Rodriguez, Juan-Luis Recio Adrados, and Mario R. De La Rosa Orthogonal Cultural Identification: Theoretical Links Between Cultural Identification and Substance Use 32 E. R. Oetting Acculturation: The Broader View. Theoretical Framework of the Acculturation Scales 57 Juan-Luis Recio Adrados Interactional Theory: Its Utility in Explaining Drug Use Behavior Among African-American and Puerto Rican Youth 79 Judith S. Brook Network Theory: A Model for Understanding Drug Abuse Among African-American and Hispanic Youth 102 Marvin D. Krohn and Terence P. Thornberry iii Examining Conceptual Models for Understanding Drug Use Behavior Among American Indian Youth 129 Jeff King and Julian F. Thayer METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES AND FINDINGS Acculturation Strain Theory: Its Application in Explaining Drug Use Behavior Among Cuban and Other Hispanic Youth 144 William A. Vega, Rick Zimmerman, Andres Gil, George J. Warheit, and Eleni Apospori Validity of Self-Reports in Student-Based Studies on Minority Populations: Issues and Concerns 167 John M. Wallace, Jr., and Jerald G. Bachman Interviewing Minority Youth About Drug Use: Telephone vs. In-Person Surveys 201 Leonard LoSciuto, William S. Aquilino, and Frederick C. Licari Hispanic Dropouts and Drug Use: A Review of the Literature and Methodological Considerations 224 Ernest L. Chavez Getting Into the Gang: Methodological Issues in Studying Ethnic Gangs 234 Karen A. Joe Identifying, Gaining Access To, and Collecting Data on African-American Drug Addicts Leon E. Pettiway Surveying and Tracking Urban Elementary School Children’s Use of Abusable Substances 280 Patricia J. Bush, Mary Ann D’Elio, Charlotte D. Peoples, and Heather M. Schell School and Community Politics: Issues, Concerns, and Implications When Conducting Research in African-American Communities 298 Julius Debra and Darlene J. Conley iv Substance Use Disorders Among Young Minority Refugees: Common Themes in a Clinical Sample 308 Joe Westermeyer FUTURE DIRECTIONS Current Gaps and New Directions for Studying Drug Use and Abuse Behavior in Minority Youth 321 Mario R. De La Rosa, Juan-Luis Recio Adrados, Nancy J. Kennedy, and Norweeta Milburn List of NIDA Research Monographs 341 v Introduction and Overview Mario R. De La Rosa, Juan-Luis Recio Adrados, and Norweeta Milburn During the past decade, some advances have been made in understanding the nature and extent of the drug use problem encountered by minority youth.1 Results obtained from this research have provided suggestive evidence that American Indian high school seniors are more likely than their non-Hispanic white, Hispanic, African-American, and Asian-American counterparts to use and abuse licit and illicit drugs (Beauvais et al. 1989; Bachman et al. 1990). Data also suggest that stress caused by assimilation into American society and lack of family cohesiveness and support may be related to the drug use behavior of Hispanic and African-American youth (Vega et al., this volume: Szapocznik and Kurtines 1980). Information on the prevalence and causes of drug use among minority youth has been utilized by human service and health care providers, law enforcement officials, and policymakers to develop interventions and policies geared toward addressing the drug problem experienced by these youth. Despite these research advances, little is known about the patterns, causes, and consequences of illicit and licit drug use and abuse among minority youth. The limited literature suggests that, because of cultural influences, unique economic situations, and formal and informal social network systems, the drug-using behavior of minority youth may vary significantly from that of nonminority youth. Thus, there is an urgent need for etiologic research that investigates the interactive roles of intrapersonal, interpersonal, familial, cultural community, and other larger societal factors on the onset, casual use, escalation to use, maintenance, development of dependence, cessation of use, and relapse to use of licit and illicit drugs among minority youth. Studies are also needed that would investigate protective factors among minority children who are at risk but have refrained from using drugs or from escalating to abuse from initial limited exposure. There is also a need for epidemiologic studies to determine the prevalence of drug use among Asian-American and Hispanic youth of South and Central American and Caribbean extraction. Research on the interrelationship between drug abuse and violence among school dropouts, gang members, and other minority youth should also be undertaken. 1 This paucity of research on the drug use behavior of minority youth can be attributed to several factors; the following ones seem to stand out: (1) inadequate exploration of the important role that ethnic and racial factors play in the drug use behavior of growing ethnic or racial minority populations; (2) inaccessibility of these populations to drug abuse researchers because of the mistrust that many ethnic groups, including African-Americans, have toward drug abuse researchers; (3) lack of trained minority drug abuse researchers; (4) lack of well-designed community-based research projects that would utilize qualitative and quantitative methodologies in combination when collecting data on minority youth; and (5) lack of resources to conduct well-designed drug abuse etiologic research projects. The lack of information on the extent and nature of drug use and abuse problems among minority youth limits the development of culturally relevant and, therefore, effective drug abuse prevention and treatment programs directed toward this group. Human service and health care workers who provide drug abuse services to minority youth have long argued that current drug abuse prevention and treatment programs are not effective in addressing the drug use problems found among these youth. They attribute this failure to the fact that the majority of preventive and treatment programs are based on data collected from research studies conducted on nonminority youth. Because the problem of drug use and abuse affects the physical and emotional well- being of minority youth, there is an urgency to develop interventions that will effectively counteract this problem. With this sense of urgency, on July 17-18, 1991, a technical review-titled “Epidemiologic Drug Abuse Research on Minority Youth: Methodological Issues and Recent Research Advances,” sponsored by the Epidemiologic Research Branch, National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), Division of Epidemiology and Prevention Research-was held in Bethesda, MD. The major objective of this conference was to stimulate further research on the potentially unique nature of the drug-using behaviors of minority youth by reviewing current research and proposing future research directions. Data ‘were presented on recent findings from theory-driven research studies on the etiology of drug use among minority youth. In addition, information regarding methodological problems and other barriers affecting the lack and quality of research in this field also was presented. The papers presented at this technical review are contained in this monograph and fall into three categories: (1) review of theory-driven research findings and other theoretical considerations, (2) methodological problems and other barriers, and (3) future research orientation. The first set of chapters presents findings from theory-driven research or discusses theoretical issues relevant to research on the drug-using behavior 2 of minority youth. In their chapters, Rodriguez and colleagues, Oetting, and Recio Adrados seek to address the important role that acculturation-related stress and cultural values toward substance abuse play in the drug-using behavior of Hispanic and American Indian youth. The findings presented by Rodriguez and colleagues point to the need to expand existing theoretical models to include a subcultural component when exploring the drug-using behavior of Puerto Rican and other Hispanic youth. They provide evidence that suggests that future etiologic research on the drug- using behavior of Puerto Rican youth should extensively explore the role that cultural values toward drug use and loss of cultural identity play in the drug- using behavior and drug-dealing activities of these youth. Oetting’s chapter discusses the importance of cultural identification in the well-being of American Indian youth. According to Oetting, those American Indian youth who lose their cultural identity are more susceptible to use and abuse of drugs than those who do not. Recio Adrados provides a review of different theoretical models underpinning the development of scales to measure the complex phenomenon of acculturation. He argues that many of the efforts made in measuring the construct of culture are in need of further theoretical expansion. Recio Adrados calls for the development of a multidisciplinary theoretical approach to further the knowledge base regarding the importance of cultural changes in the lives of immigrant groups. He states that such a theoretical approach could lead to the development of scales that would more accurately determine the impact that cultural changes and cultural values have on the drug-using behavior and emotional well-being of ethnic minority youth. The chapters by Brook and by Krohn and Thornberry explore the role that network and family systems have on the drug-using behavior of Puerto Rican and African-American youth. Brook provides the results from a project that explored the impact of familial relationship and attachment, the school environment, peer relationships, individual personality traits, and other domains on the drug-using behavior of African-American and Puerto Rican youth. These results suggest that the domains of personality, family, and drug context have direct influence on the drug-using behavior of these youth. In particular, Brook found that nonconflictual and affectionate mutual attachment relationships between parents and children led to lower levels of drug use among these children. Similarly, Krohn and Thornberry present findings from a research project that explored the network systems of white non-Hispanic, African-American, and Puerto Rican youth drug users and nonusers, The findings suggest that nonusers tend to have stronger family network systems than do users regardless of race and ethnic background. On the other hand, users appear to have more supportive and intimate relationships with their friends than do nonusers. However, the friendship networks of users were less stable than 3