Understanding Neighborhoods' Impact on Youth Substance Use and Mental Health Outcomes in Paterson, New Jersey: Protocol for a Community-Based Participatory Research Study

Brief Parent-Child Substance Use Education Intervention for Black Families in Urban Cities in New Jersey: Protocol for a Formative Study Design

BACKGROUND

Substance use continues to remain a public health issue for youths in the United States. Black youths living in urban communities are at a heightened risk of poor outcomes associated with substance use and misuse due to exposure to stressors in their neighborhoods, racial discrimination, and lack of prevention education programs specifically targeting Black youths. Many Black youths, especially those who live in urban communities, do not have access to culturally tailored interventions, leaving a critical gap in prevention. Since family is a well-known protective factor against substance misuse for Black youths, it is essential to create sustainable and accessible programming that incorporates Black youths' and their families' voices to develop a suitable prevention program for them.

OBJECTIVE

We aim to understand the cultural and environmental level factors that influence substance use among Black youths and develop a prevention program to increase parent-child substance use education among Black families.

METHODS

This study will take place within urban cities in New Jersey such as Paterson and East Orange, New Jersey, which will be the main study sites. Both cities have a large population of Black youths and this study's team has strong ties with youths-serving organizations there. A formative, qualitative study will be conducted first. Using the first 3 steps of the ADAPT-ITT (Assessment, Decision, Adaptation, Production, Topical Experts, Integration, Training, and Testing) framework we begin the development of an intervention for Black families. Three aims will be described: aim 1, collect qualitative data from Black parents and youths aged 11-17 years from parent-child dyads (N=20) on the challenges, barriers, and facilitators to communicating about substance use; aim 2, adapt a selected evidence-based intervention for Black families and develop a family advisory board to guide the adaptation; and aim 3 assess the feasibility of the intervention through theater testing, involving the family and community advisory board.

RESULTS

This study is part of a 2-year research pilot study award from the National Institutes of Drug Abuse. Data collection began in May 2023, and for aim 1, it is 95% complete. All aim 1 data collection is expected to be complete by December 30, 2023. Data analysis will immediately follow. Aim 2 activity will occur in spring 2024. Aim 3 activity may begin in fall 2024 and conclude in 2025.

CONCLUSIONS

This study will be one of the few interventions that address substance use among youths and uses parents and families in urban communities as a protective factor within the program. We anticipate that the intervention will benefit Black youths not only in New Jersey but across the nation, working on building culturally appropriate, community-specific prevention education and building on strong families' relationships, resulting in a reduction of or delayed substance use.

INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID)

DERR1-10.2196/55470.

Future Directions for Community-Engaged Research in Clinical Psychological Science with Youth

Despite advances in clinical science, the burden of mental health problems among youth is not improving. To tackle this burden, clinical science with youth needs methods that include youth and family perspectives on context and public health. In this paper, we illustrate how community-engaged research (CEnR) methods center these perspectives. Although CEnR methods are well-established in other disciplines (e.g. social work, community psychology), they are underutilized in clinical science with youth. This is due in part to misperceptions of CEnR as resource-intensive, overly contextualized, incompatible with experimentally controlled modes of inquiry, or irrelevant to understanding youth mental health. By contrast, CEnR methods can provide real-world impact, contextualized clinical solutions, and sustainable outcomes. A key advantage of CEnR strategies is their flexibility-they fall across a continuum that centers community engagement as a core principle, and thus can be infused in a variety of research efforts, even those that center experimental control (e.g. randomized controlled trials). This paper provides a brief overview of this continuum of strategies and its application to youth-focused clinical science. We then discuss future directions of CEnR in clinical science with youth, as well as structural changes needed to advance this work. The goals of this paper are to help demystify CEnR and encourage clinical scientists to consider adopting methods that better consider context and intentionally engage the communities that our work seeks to serve.

Schools' Neighborhoods and Characteristics: Implications for Standardized Academic Achievement in Passaic, NJ's Elementary, Middle and High Schools

Schools in urban neighborhoods receive less funding, have less programming, and have poorer infrastructure. Such disparities may impede academic outcomes among youth. This study used publicly available data to examine the association between school characteristics and surrounding neighborhood environment on educational outcomes across three academic years among 132 schools in Passaic County, New Jersey. Further, we assessed how schools' socioeconomic status could buffer the effects of a school's neighborhood disadvantage on academic outcomes. Results supported compound deprivation theory highlighting that lower-performing schools were located in lower-resourced neighborhoods. Further, school characteristics and neighborhood resource deprivation were associated with lower math, English, and science academic performance. Additionally, we found that associations between neighborhood resources and math and science academic outcomes were strongest in schools with greater economic support. We provide implications for research and practice by identifying multi-faceted approaches to challenge educational disparities addressing school and neighborhood-level disadvantages to improve educational outcomes for youth.

Virtual recruitment and participant engagement for substance use research during a pandemic

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic resulted in cataclysmic changes to the research enterprise, causing a forced shutdown or rapid pivot to virtual methods. Adapting studies to the virtual environment also impacted recruitment and retention strategies. This review elucidated challenges and offered pragmatic recommendations, drawing on published literature and our prior work, to assist researchers in re-evaluating and amending best-practice techniques to bolster inclusive recruitment and study engagement of people using substances, particularly for virtual interviews or focus groups.

RECENT FINDINGS

Ameliorating recruitment strategies and research protocols to better fit virtual methods of recruitment and study administration required careful consideration of ethical and logistical implications. Many procedures to increase enrollment of underrepresented populations, such as building mutually beneficial and respectful community partnerships, recruiting via social media, or providing ambulatory research centers, existed prior to this specific pandemic. However, unprecedented disruptions in resources needed to participate in virtual interviews or focus groups, privacy concerns, and possible deteriorating trust in research necessitated continued adaptation and expansion of these strategies.

SUMMARY

Building upon prepandemic, community-engaged strategies may continue to facilitate diverse recruitment efforts and advance science productivity in the substance use and addiction field during the pandemic and thereafter.