Preventing Substance Use Among Black and Hispanic Adolescent Girls: Results From a Computer-Delivered, Mother–Daughter Intervention Approach

Abstract

This 2008 study involved 546 Black and Hispanic American adolescent girls and their mothers from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Participants provided self-report data. Analysis of covariance indicated that the experimental intervention reduced risk factors, improved protective factors, and lowered girls’ alcohol use and their future intentions to use substances. The study supports the value of computer-based and gender-specific interventions that involve girls and their mothers. Future work needs to replicate and strengthen study results.

Keywords :

• drug use
• adolescent girls
• computer-delivered prevention programming
• family intervention
• binge drinking

THE AUTHORS

Steven Schinke, Ph.D., is the D’Elbert and Selma Keenan Professor at Columbia University School of Social Work. Dr. Schinke's research involves the development and testing of programs to prevent substance use and other problem behavior among adolescents, with particular emphasis on intervention approaches delivered by computer and engaging youths’ parents.

Lin Fang, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto, Canada, and an Associate Research Scientist at Columbia University, New York, USA. Dr. Fang's research areas include substance abuse prevention among adolescents, etiology of substance use and abuse among adolescents, computer-based prevention applications, evidence-based practice implementation in social work agencies, and culturally appropriate mental health assessments and treatments.

Kristin Cole, M.S., is a Research Scholar at Columbia University School of Social Work, where she plans and coordinates intervention outcome studies. Ms. Cole's work has focused on problem behavior prevention interventions targeted at high-risk youth. Recently, she has focused on developing and testing gender-specific substance use prevention programs for girls.

Sally Cohen-Cutler, B.S., is a first-year medical student at the Pritzker School of Medicine, University of Chicago. Previously with Columbia University, Ms. Sally Cohen-Cutler intends to specialize in pediatrics.

Notes

3 The reader is referred to Hill's criteria for causation, which were developed in order to help assist researchers and clinicians determine if risk factors were causes of a particular disease or outcomes or merely associated; Hill, A. B. (1965). The environment and disease: Associations or causation? Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 58, 295–300. Editor's note.