This application requests a NIDA Research Scientist Development Award (RSDA) to support Dr. Rumi Kato Price's research career in epidemiology of dug abuse. She will pursue two studies during the five years of RSDA funding. Each study is aimed at advancing the understanding of the complex relationships among psychopathology, environment, and drug abuse. However, each study uniquely relates to a different aspect of environmental variation: the first, to changes and stability over-time; and the second, to the cross-cultural variation. STUDY 1: Vietnam Drug Users Two Decades Later. This is a long-term follow-up of the landmark epidemiologic study conducted in 1972 and 1974 by Dr. Lee Robins and associates. The original study found unanticipated changes in drug-use behavior over the periods covering the subjects' pre-, in-, and post-Vietnam experience; and that early psychopathology was a powerful predictor of continued drug use and abuse. Currently, the feasibility study of the follow-up is funded (R01-DA07939). During the next five years, Dr. Price plans to accomplish the following goals: 1) to complete the feasibility study (Phase I), by locating a minimum of 830 respondents from the original study and verifying their identity; 2) to complete the analyses of mortality, geographical mobility, VA medical utilization and tracing efforts; 3) to complete the pretest phase (Phase II), by developing and testing interviews for the main study on a separate convenient sample of 60 subjects; 4) to complete the analyses of validity and acceptability of in-person v.s. telephone interview methods; 5) to initiate and complete the follow-up interviews (Phase III) with the target 830 respondents of the original study; and 6a) to assess the prevalence of substance use and psychiatric problems; 6b) to assess the course of substance abuse over-time; and 6c) to identify the predictors of the long- term outcomes and course of substance abuse. STUDY 2: Protective Factors for Drug Abuse: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. This study extends Drs. Robins' and Price's U.S. Epidemiologic Catchment Area Project findings on the association between childhood conduct problems and adult substance abuse and psychopathology, to a cross-cultural framework. The overall study will identify socio- cultural factors which inhibit the development of childhood conduct problems into substance abuse and adult psychopathology. The study is currently at a beginning phase. Dr. Price plans to complete the following three phases in five years: 1) to replicate these earlier findings by analyzing highly comparable data already collected in Taiwan, Korea, Canada and New Zealand; 2) to identify different manifestations of childhood conduct problems by reviewing results of existing studies of the native Japanese, Hawaiians and Japanese Americans; and 3) to examine protective factors against substance use in the Japanese society by reviewing archival studies in child-rearing practices, school and neighborhood socialization, and community integration. The results from these phases will provide sufficient information to propose and design a cross-cultural collaborative study between the U.S. research team and the Japan National Institute of Mental Health.
