Elizabeth Pomeroy
School of Social Work
The University of Texas at Austin
1925 San Jacinto Blvd.
Austin TX 78712
US
Phone: (512) 232-3405
FAX: (512) 471-9600
Email: bpomeroy@mail.utexas.edu

Margaret Taylor
School of Nursing
UT
Austin TX 78712
US

This poster presentation illustrates the findings of an exploratory quantitative and qualitative pilot study. Adolescents in non-school settings, despite being at very high risk for substance abuse, are often overlooked in prevention studies and they participate actively.  Consequently, the sample (N = 72) was drawn from several community-based programs (homeless youth shelter, Boys & Girls club, and alternative learning program). Measures included questions re: alcohol/drug use and attitudes and acculturative type (ARSMA IIR). The study demonstrates three important aspects of substance abuse research: 1) community relationships, 2) preliminary data on substance abuse prevalence among adolescents with ethnic differences in drug usage, and 3) the impact of Acculturative Type among Anglo, Mexican-American, and African-American youth.  Analyses indicated a high lifetime prevalence of drug use (over 80% for Whites and Latinos for beer, wine, liquor, and marijuana), with consistently lower prevalence rates observed among African-Americans.  These data indicate the high-risk nature of this population, emphasizing the need for tertiary prevention efforts.  Analyses also indicated significant ethnic differences in substance abuse (last month) prevalence in the sample (median age = 16), with African-Americans reporting significantly lower prevalence of marijuana and cocaine (p < .05) than other youth.  Preliminary efforts to construct an acculturation typology involved construction of a linear acculturation score (AOS – MOS) and then standardizing this and applying cut-off points. The results indicated that the present sample was rather mixed in terms of acculturation:  16% of the sample fell in the “predominantly Mexican” category, 17% fell in the ‘Somewhat Mexican” category, approximately 58% fell in the ‘somewhat Anglo” category, and very few (approximately 9%) fell in the “predominantly Anglo” category.  This poster highlights acculturative type as an important innovation in substance abuse prevention research; acculturation measures appear reliable in different ethnic groups differentiate among Anglos, African Americans, and Latinos.