In support of the overall Center mission and through the community participatory process, the Research Core goals are to implement: 1) one substantial, innovative multi-level intervention research effort to address multiple risk factors for substance abuse and co-occurring problems (family/partner violence, sex risk, youth violence) in Latino immigrant youth and families (a vulnerability cluster), following a Positive Youth Development approach;and 2) components added to the ADELANTE research protocol to assess the impact of social media, cellphone and branding activities undertaken through the Community Engagement/Outreach Core that have as a goal increasing youth identification with the behavioral goals of the ADELANTE project (a very timely and appropriate consideration given the high rates of cellphone usage in the Latino population) Theprimary research effort will implement and evaluate a multi-level intervention, called ADELANTE, that evolved from our collaboration with Latino community organizations to identify key contributing factors for youth/family risk and the lessons/results from a prototype intervention (SAFER Latinos) developed through that collaboration, as well as insights from an ongoing etiological study of family and partner violence in the same community (CDC, Project VOCES). Because the primary research involves multiple components, it will be the focus of the Research Core. Finally, through the Community Engagement/Outreach Core as well as through papers/presentations and articles, we will disseminate results of the research.
