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Abstract
This study seeks to identify how rural adolescents make health decisions and utilize communication strategies to resist influence attempts in offers of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs (ATOD). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 113 adolescents from rural school districts to solicit information on ATOD norms, past ATOD experiences, and substance offer-response episodes. Rural youths’ resistance strategies were similar to previous findings with urban adolescents—refuse, explain, avoid, and leave (the REAL typology)—while unique features of these strategies were identified including the importance of personal narratives, the articulation of a non-user identity, and being “accountable” to self and others.
Acknowledgements
This paper was presented on May 29, 2009 at the Society for Prevention Research annual meeting in Washington, DC. The authors thank the students and schools who participated in this study. We are also grateful to the participants for sharing their experiences and to other members of the research team for their help with this project: M. Colby, T. Deas, A. Dossett, T. Hipper, S. Hopfer, J. Moreland, and A. Pezalla. This publication was supported by Grant Number R01DA021670 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to The Pennsylvania State University (Michael Hecht, Principal Investigator). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the National Institutes of Health.