Reducing Alcohol, Tobacco, and Drug Use Among Latino Immigrant Youth: A Preliminary Test of the ¡Unidos Se Puede! Program

Adolescent alcohol tobacco and drug (ATOD) use is a major public health concern, with rates for Latino middle school youth higher than other ethnic groups. One well-established precursor of adolescent ATOD use is psychosocial stress. The overall aim of this project is to test the efficacy of a culturally appropriate psychosocial program to prevent or reduce ATOD use among Latino immigrant youth. The intervention consists of: (1) encouraging parental involvement in child schooling, general parenting skills, and coping strategies ; (2) fostering child social emotional learning (SEL) through assigning a near-peer success coach to help develop critical thinking, problem solving, and goal setting skills; and (3) promoting positive peer affiliations through participation in regular activities that facilitate bonding to prosocial institutions.

The specific aims are:

(1) Evaluate the potential of the intervention to delay the initiation into or reduce ATOD use among Latino youth who are 1st to 2nd generation immigrants; and (2) Evaluate the intervention's ability to strengthen known protective factors against ATOD use among adolescents-specifically child personal agency and parent-child, peer, and school relationships.

The study's primary hypothesis is: The Unidos Se Puede program will delay initiation of ATOD use of current non-users and reduce use among current users.

To accomplish these aims, we propose an attention placebo randomized control trial. For this trial, we will recruit a sample of youth and their parents (N=120 dyads) from a random sample of Latino 6th and 7th grade students in Tulsa Public Schools. Those meeting the inclusion/exclusion criteria and agreeing to participate will provide baseline data before being randomly assigned to either the treatment or control condition (n=60 dyads each). Participants will be followed for 12 months post-baseline, during which time we will collect psychosocial measures annually near the end of each school year (May to June). The study will collect psychosocial measures from parents and youth.