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ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Alcohol, Tobacco, and Illicit Drug Use Among Native American College Students: An Exploratory Quantitative Analysis

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Pages 1410-1419 | Published online: 03 Aug 2011
 

Abstract

We examine alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drug use among US Native American college students by using 4 years of College Alcohol Study data (1993, 1997, 1999, and 2001; n = 267). To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to quantitatively examine this population using advanced statistical analyses and a nationally representative sample of US college students. Descriptive and logistic regression analyses show that Native American college students have unique rates and patterns of substance use that must be addressed accordingly. It is suggested that specialized future research and policy are needed to properly address alcohol and drug use among this population. Limitations of the study are noted.

THE AUTHORS

Brian W. Ward, Ph.D., recently received his Ph.D. degree in sociology from the University of Maryland, College Park where he specialized in demography and stratification. His research interests include alcohol and tobacco use among college students and adolescents, and the influences/processes that affect this use. His research has appeared in Journal of American College Health, Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, and Health Education & Behavior.

Heather Ridolfo, Ph.D., recently received her Ph.D. degree in sociology from the University of Maryland, College Park where she specialized in social psychology and stratification. Her research interests include self-concept development, questionnaire evaluation, and response error. Her research has appeared in Journals of Gerontology, Journal of Adolescence, and Field Methods.

Notes

1 How the concept of binge drinking is defined may play an important role in these male/female differences. Sex-specific definitions of binge drinking have become more common (see National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Citation2004), and when these definitions have been used, the difference in binge drinking between the sexes in college has become less apparent (Bylund, Imes, & Baxter, Citation2005; Wechsler, Dowdall, Davenport, & Rimm, Citation1995).

2 It has been stated elsewhere that it is important to acknowledge the variation in terminology used for Native Americans by researchers as these terms can refer to distinct populations (Johnson et al., Citation2008). The CAS uses the term “Native American Indian/Native Alaskan” in all four survey years, which we simply refer to as “Native American” in our research.

3 The CAS used the following attributes for class year/standing: 1 = freshman, 2 = sophomore, 3 = junior, 4 = senior, and 5 = 5th year or beyond undergraduate/graduate. This coding scheme was problematic because these attributes are not mutually exclusive. Since this measure is continually used and cited in the larger body of literature on college student substance use and is a proxy for the time spent at an institution, we felt it was important to include. However, unlike past research using the CAS, we believed it would be more analytically accurate to treat this variable at the ordinal level of measurement (a continuous variable) as opposed to the nominal level (series of dummy variables).

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