The People Awakening Project (PAP) is a collaborative study between Alaska Natives and university researchers to provide an Alaska Native understanding of the sobriety process. PAP envisions a three year project subdivided into two distinct and interconnected phases: Phase l: The first phase of the project (approximately 18 months) involves a qualitative study using life history interviews with a purposive sample of 30 Alaska Native men and women who are members of the five culturally distinct Native groups in Alaska. The Phase l sample is composed of equal numbers of lifetime abstainers, non-problem drinkers, secure abstainers (those who have had a drinking problem and have abstained for 3 or more years and includes those who became abstinent with or without treatment. PAP will (l) identify the factors that were perceived as most helped or were barriers during the sobriety process? (2) Identify adverse consequences of alcohol for Alaska Natives; (3) define how Alaska Natives conceptualize and utilize their spirituality for their sobriety process; (4) delineate theoretical models based on the experience of Alaska Natives that help explain the pathways into sobriety; (5) culturally adapt the DrInC for screening of participants; and (6) generate items useful in Phase 2 for cultural adaptation of instruments or development of new measures of variables important for the study of Native sobriety. Phase 2 (21 months): The primary goal of the second phase of PAP is the development of culturally and linguistically appropriate measurements of variables hypothesized as important in the sobriety process and predictive of favorable outcome. This includes the adaptation of existing standardized measures and the development of new measures needed to address themes arising from analysis of the preliminary study, by input from the PAP Alaska Native Sobriety Processes Work Group, and from the proposed analyses of the Phase l data. Variables Phase 2 will be guided by four primary research questions: (l) Do standardized measures of constructs identified as predictors of sobriety display cross-cultural equivalence with Yup'ik people? (2) Can Yup'ik Cultural and Spiritual Coping Factors and Yup'ik Cultural Identity be operationally defined using measurement instruments with demonstrated psychometric properties? (3) What is the prevalence within a representative, stratified sample of Yup'ik people of empirically identified sobriety types using a structured assessment procedure (DrInC) adapted for Yup'ik people? (4) In what ways do the sobriety groups differ on the psychological constructs measured by PAP? Both the currently existing standardized instruments selected for use and the instruments proposed for development will undergo rigorous pilot testing for cultural and linguistic equivalence and psychometric integrity during Phase 2. The product of this research will be a set of instruments with initial psychometric data, suitable for use for research purposes in studies of substance abuse, mental health, and prevention studies with Alaska Native people.
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