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Abstract
The Sacred Mountain Youth Project was conducted to investigate risk and protective factors related to alcohol and drug use among American Indian youth. Findings indicated that stressful life events were positively associated with depressed mood, substance use, and risky behavior; cultural identity had no direct effects, but a secondary model showed that social support and protective family and peer influences were related to cultural identity. These findings suggest that the relationships between stressors and their negative sequelae are complex. Emphasis on protective processes that are culturally specific to American Indian youth may lead to effective alcohol and drug use prevention programs.
THE AUTHORS
Julie A. Baldwin (Cherokee), Ph.D., Professor and Chair, Department of Community and Family Health, University of South Florida, earned her doctorate in Behavioral Sciences and Health Education from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health. Her research over the years has focused on both infectious and chronic disease prevention. Cross-cutting themes which have characterized her work include: utilizing community-based participatory research approaches, working with AI populations, and addressing health disparities by developing and implementing culturally competent public health interventions.
Betty G. Brown, Ph.D., M.P.H, Assistant Professor, Department of Health Sciences, Northern Arizona University, earned her Ph.D. in Medical Sociology at Arizona State University and a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology from Tulane University, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Her research interests include both interpersonal- and community-level work in HIV, mental health, brain injury, and disabilities, with a focus on rural health.
Heidi A. Wayment, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Northern Arizona University, is a health psychologist whose current research examines “quiet ego processes” or characteristics related to a less defensive stance toward the self and others and how quiet ego processes facilitate well-being. She is especially interested in how quiet ego characteristics are affected by, and in turn influence, individuals’ reactions to stressful life events.
Ramona Antone Nez (Navajo/Iroquois Oneida), M.P.H., B.S.N., Principal Planner, Navajo Nation Division of Health, earned her Master of Public Health from the University of Arizona and BSN from Northern Arizona University. She works on planning, research, evaluation and policy development with Tribal Health Systems.
Kathleen M. Brelsford, M.A., is a doctoral candidate of medical anthropology at the University of South Florida, with a dual master's degree in public health. Her main areas of research are immunization decisions, STIs, and reproductive health issues.
Notes
2 The journal's style utilizes the category substance abuse as a diagnostic category. Substances are used or misused; living organisms are and can be abused. Editor's note.
3 The reader is reminded that the concepts of risk and protective factors are often noted in the literature without adequately delineating their dimensions (linear and nonlinear), their “demands,” the critical necessary conditions (endogenously as well as exogenously; from a micro to a macro level), which are necessary for either one of them to operate (begin, continue, become anchored and integrate, change as de facto realities change, cease, etc.) or not to and whether their underpinnings are theory-driven, empirically based, individual and/or systemic stake holder-bound, based upon “principles of faith,” historical observation, precedents, and traditions that accumulate over time, perceptual, and judgmental constraints, “transient public opinion.” or what. This is necessary to clarify if the term is not to remain as yet another shibboleth in a field of many stereotypes. Editor's note.