Substance Use Prevention Campaign for American Indian Youth
Condition: Adolescent Substance Use
MeSH terms: Substance-Related Disorders
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      The goal of this project is to test the effectiveness of a successful anti-drug
      communications campaign (Be Under your Own Influence) to lower substance use among AI 7th
      graders. The campaign uses messages that support youths' personal autonomy and future
      aspirations, and these messages are delivered to 7th graders using high school students. Our
      goal is to develop a turnkey package for the broader population of AI youth and schools and
      to develop components that can incorporate flexibility and creativity in their delivery.
    

Detailed description: 
      Substance use is a particularly dangerous risk to middle-school youth, and American Indian
      (AI) youth are at increased risk. We have found over the course of more than three decades
      that substance use among AI youth is consistently higher than that of other ethnic/racial
      groups.

      Schools are often the site for adolescent drug prevention efforts, but results from these
      efforts are often modest or even disappointing. This intervention adapts an existing campaign
      (Be Under Your Own Influence; BUYOI) that has been found to be effective in reducing
      substance use and that uses campaign messages that are congruent with AI culture. The
      intervention will be adapted using significant contributions from tribal members, including
      youth, teachers, parents, elders, and other community members. This proposal includes active
      involvement of local advisory boards, hiring of a local AI liaison, focus groups, a youth
      photo voice component, and use of AI staff from our Center and from the Native American
      Cultural Center at our university.

      The adapted anti-drug and alcohol use communications campaign will be delivered by selected
      high school students to 7th grade students. A distinguishing feature of the BUYOI campaign is
      a message that targets outcome expectations related to aspirations, autonomy, and physical
      harms. The campaign will use multiple channels of communication including print (e.g.,
      posters and fliers), video and audio spots, presentations, and social media to deliver
      messages that are designed to alter outcome expectancies, intentions, and ultimately
      substance use among targeted youth.

      The campaign will be delivered to two cohorts of 7th graders, with 4 longitudinal measurement
      occasions for each cohort. Five middle schools (and their corresponding high schools) have
      been recruited for the study, where three of these will be randomly assigned to the
      intervention condition and two to the control condition. Multilevel data analysis will test
      for effects of campaign exposure on autonomy, aspirations, perceived harm, and intentions to
      use.

      Because of the heavy involvement of the school and community in the development and delivery
      of the intervention, we will be able to incorporate sustainability into the design of all
      integrated components. Ultimately, our goal is to develop a turnkey package for the broader
      population of reservation-based AI youth and schools and to develop components that can
      incorporate flexibility and creativity in their delivery. For example, a school or local
      group may implement the campaign in its original form or they may modify aspects to make them
      more pertinent to their community.
    

Intervention name(s): Be Under Your Own Influence
Intervention type(s): Behavioral
Intervention description(s): School based anti-drug use communications campaign
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Prevention