Substance Use Prevention Campaign for American Indian Youth

Substance use is a particularly dangerous risk to middle-school youth, and American Indian (AI) youth are at increased risk. We have found over the course of more than three decades that substance use among AI youth is consistently higher than that of other ethnic/racial groups.

Schools are often the site for adolescent drug prevention efforts, but results from these efforts are often modest or even disappointing. This intervention adapts an existing campaign (Be Under Your Own Influence; BUYOI) that has been found to be effective in reducing substance use and that uses campaign messages that are congruent with AI culture. The intervention will be adapted using significant contributions from tribal members, including youth, teachers, parents, elders, and other community members. This proposal includes active involvement of local advisory boards, hiring of a local AI liaison, focus groups, a youth photo voice component, and use of AI staff from our Center and from the Native American Cultural Center at our university.

The adapted anti-drug and alcohol use communications campaign will be delivered by selected high school students to 7th grade students. A distinguishing feature of the BUYOI campaign is a message that targets outcome expectations related to aspirations, autonomy, and physical harms. The campaign will use multiple channels of communication including print (e.g., posters and fliers), video and audio spots, presentations, and social media to deliver messages that are designed to alter outcome expectancies, intentions, and ultimately substance use among targeted youth.

The campaign will be delivered to two cohorts of 7th graders, with 4 longitudinal measurement occasions for each cohort. Five middle schools (and their corresponding high schools) have been recruited for the study, where three of these will be randomly assigned to the intervention condition and two to the control condition. Multilevel data analysis will test for effects of campaign exposure on autonomy, aspirations, perceived harm, and intentions to use.

Because of the heavy involvement of the school and community in the development and delivery of the intervention, we will be able to incorporate sustainability into the design of all integrated components. Ultimately, our goal is to develop a turnkey package for the broader population of reservation-based AI youth and schools and to develop components that can incorporate flexibility and creativity in their delivery. For example, a school or local group may implement the campaign in its original form or they may modify aspects to make them more pertinent to their community.