My career goal is to: (a) identify the prosocial coping expertise that accounts for the development of resistance, recovery, resilience, or vulnerability to drug abuse, and, (b) devise drug abuse prevention strategies that benefit diverse ethnic groups by transmitting to high-risk youth and their parents the prosocial coping expertise of resilient peers and parents from similar backgrounds. Through a development plan sponsored by Gene Oetting, I will: respecialize in substance abuse prevention with high-risk ethnic minority youth; intensively study cognitive psychology methods used to investigate expertise and practical intelligence so that I can apply these methods to research on resilient youth and their parents; and, learn statistical methods necessary for analysis of cross-sectional and longitudinal data and for model testing. My training plan includes: skill acquisition through consultation, laboratory visits, and a specialized conference; skill application; and research products. My research plan includes 3 independent, prevention-focused studies that will be conducted continuously across Yrs 1-5. (a) In Study 1, a cross-sectional, longitudinal juvenile offender database tests the coping-competence model (comparing it to alternative models of substance-abuse development) and an operational definition of resilience using methods such as Structural Equation Modeling and Latent Growth Modeling (LGM). (b) Study 2 uses Latent Class Analysis (LCA) to identify high-risk and resilient youth in the Study 1 database and to document the expert, prosocial coping skills that distinguish resilient youth and their parents. (c) Study 3 compares the prevention effects on high-risk delinquent youth in the Study 1 database of Intervention as Usual (IAU) vs. Family Coping Skills Training (FCS) using methods such as Hierarchical Linear Modeling. (d) Linking results of Studies 1-3, LCA and LGM will be used to determine the static and dynamic similarities between spontaneously resilient youth and intervention responders.
| Helstrom, Amy; Bryan, Angela; Hutchison, Kent E et al. (2004) Tobacco and alcohol use as an explanation for the association between externalizing behavior and illicit drug use among delinquent adolescents. Prev Sci 5:267-77 |
| Blechman, E A; Maurice, A; Buecker, B et al. (2000) Can mentoring or skill training reduce recidivism? Observational study with propensity analysis. Prev Sci 1:139-55 |
| Blechman, E A; Lowell, E S; Garrett, J (1999) Prosocial coping and substance use during pregnancy. Addict Behav 24:99-109 |
