This study seeks to understand the nature of drug use among Asians, identify protective factors against drug abuse, and evaluate protective factors specific to ethnicity, immigrant status, and gender. Utilization of the research findings and involvement in Asian communities will enable improvement of current drug prevention and treatment programs through increased cultural sensitivity. This study will also enable us to implement future intervention studies to reinforce protective factors in Asian communities.
Two specific aims are: 1) To describe protective factors against drug abuse among Asian non-drug users and drug users who are not currently in drug treatment programs; and 2) To evaluate protective factors and to describe similarities and differences in protective factors between Asian ethnic groups specific to immigrant status and gender. Protective factors include social support, social and cultural competence, life satisfaction, norms toward drug use, perceived fairness of opportunities, and religiosity. METHODS: A total of 120 Asians (30 each in the following four groups: Chinese drug users and non- drug users and Filipino drug users and non-drug users) in the San Francisco Bay area will be recruited for the structured open-ended interviews. In the survey interview, 400 Asians (100 in each group) will be recruited. Chinese and Filipino outreach workers will identify informants and collect information related to drug use in Asian communities during the initial mapping. Drug users will be recruited based on the active snowball sampling methods utilizing referrals of informants and community members. Outreach workers will interview drug users regarding their drug and alcohol use and protective factors using a structured open-ended questionnaire. Non-drug users in the study, matched by ethnicity, gender, and immigrant status, will be recruited at ethnic organizations and cultural centers based on the active snowball sampling and advertisements. The structured open-ended interview, the focus group, and a pilot study will be used to examine the validity and cultural appropriateness of measurements in the survey questionnaire. The measurements include patterns of drug and alcohol use, protective factors, and demographics. After screening eligibility and obtaining a signed informed consent form, outreach workers will interview participants using a survey questionnaire. Discriminant analyses and logistic regression analyses, controlling for age, gender, and immigrant status, will clarify protective factors which significantly differentiate drug users from non-drug users within Chinese or Filipino. Also, using continuous variables (frequency of using drugs and volume of alcohol use), canonical correlation and multiple regression analyses will be performed on protective factors.
| Nemoto, Tooru; Operario, Don; Soma, Toho (2002) Risk behaviors of Filipino methamphetamine users in San Francisco: implications for prevention and treatment of drug use and HIV. Public Health Rep 117 Suppl 1:S30-8 |
