The proposed research is a comparative epidemiologic/etiologic study the purpose of which is to identify a model that explains vulnerability to drug use among youth in two Hispanic cultures. The two cultures, Venezuelan and Puerto Rican-American, share a contest for social problems characterized by poverty and changing values reflective of a transition from a culture which emphasizes family unity and group kinship to one which focuses on the individual and materialism. The study incorporates quantitative and qualitative methods with a stated approach entailing 3 phases: 1) ethnographic exploratory and qualitative analyses- 2) development of reliable and valid scales based on the ethnographic data; 3) model adaptation and testing. The cross cultural study includes 1) students in Venezuelan schools (n=1000); 2) adolescents in Venezuelan residential therapeutic communities (n=75); 3)adolescents attending the New York City after--school programs (N=1000), 4) adolescents admitted to C.U.R.A.7 an Hispanic-American therapeutic community in Newark, NJ (n=75). There are 5 inter-related aims: 1) To apply a qualitative approach through ethnographic field research which will identify culturally relevant categories of risk and protective factors; 2) To develop a culturally sensitive and relevant instrument based upon the information gathered under Aim 1. to assess risk and protective factors; 3) To develop a culturally valid and well-fitting model utilizing quantitative procedures to predict drug use among Venezuelan and Puerto Rican-American youth, and, to assess the cross-cultural equivalence of the model; 4) To conduct preliminary analyses involving a treatment sample of Venezuelan and hispanic-American (Puerto Rican) youth to assess the relative contribution of risk and protective factors for drug use; 5) To further advance a program of cross-cultural research in risk and vulnerability. This study addresses the serious issue of drug use among these groups and will contribute to the elucidation of a model that is culturally sensitive and relevant and integrative across disciplines. It is a first study in a planned sequence of systematic cross-cultural research utilizing a multidimensional perspective to understand the progression to drug use across the spectrum of Hispanic subcultures.
