Project

Risk Factors for Adolescent Drug Use in the United States and Colombia

Project Description

The Republic of Colombia is currently undergoing a dramatic transformation from a traditionally drug-exporting country to an increasingly drug-consuming country. Increasing rates of adolescent alcohol and illicit drug use, and youth violence, have prompted an urgent call for prevention initiatives. This call requires the development, adaptation, and implementation of prevention programs, strategies, and systems developed in the United States such as the Communities That Care (CTC) prevention system, which is being used presently in Colombia.

As a science-based approach to prevention, CTC is predicated on valid epidemiologic assessment of risk factors that serve as targets for intervention. This project examines the validity and utility of comparable measures of risk factors by combining data from existing, large-scale research studies of adolescent alcohol and drug use in both Colombia and the United States, and assessing the equivalency of these measures between the two countries. To the extent that risk factors for adolescent drug use can be measured by the same items and have the same correlates between the two countries, the applicability of prevention programs, strategies, and systems that target these risk factors in these populations is strengthened. A further aim of this project is to assess the utility of risk factor data in Colombia by disseminating these data in a user-friendly format to community leaders and obtaining feedback on how to improve the interpretability of these data for improved decision making for local prevention initiatives.

This project represents an international collaboration between the Social Development Research Group at the School of Social Work, University of Washington, and the Nuevos Rumbos Corporation in Colombia. Support for this project has been provided by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Colombian Ministry of Social Protection and Public Health, The Pan American Health Organization, the Inter-American Drug Control Commission of the Organization of American States, the Communities that Care International Committee, the SAB Miller Corporation, the Red PaPaz organization, and the Universidad Nacional and Universidad de la Sabana in Bogotá Colombia.