Systematic investigations of children and families in rural America are rare. Even rarer are studies of African Americans living in these areas, and no empirically derived prevention programs designed to delay the onset and escalation of youth alcohol and other substance use are currently available to them. We propose to design an empirically based multicomponent prevention program to decrease the use of alcohol and other substances among African American youths living in rural Georgia. The sample will consist of 400 families with a 12-year-old firstborn target child. Half of the families will be assigned randomly to a prevention group and the other half will be assigned to a no-treatment control group. Pre-intervention, post-intervention, and follow-up assessments of key study constructs and of youths' alcohol drinking and other substance use will be administered to the entire sample. Data will be gathered from mothers, fathers or extended family caregivers in single-mother families, target children, the children's friends, and the children's teachers. The multiwave research design will allow the investigators to determine which intervention components of the prevention program contribute most to the intervention's overall effectiveness and to explore the mediational processes through which these components operate.
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