Session: Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander (NHOPI) Substance Abuse Prevention Interventions (Society for Prevention Research 21st Annual Meeting)

SESSION INTRODUCTION: The goal of this symposium session is to highlight innovative drug prevention research focused primarily on Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders (NHOPIs). This symposium has implications for understanding the common pathways to and impact on disease prevention and health promotion for NHOPIs, as well as examines the development and testing of Hawaiian-specific interventions within the prevention cycle. This symposium brings together researchers from multiple research teams and institutions in the state of Hawai‘i who have actively been pursuing indigenous prevention science over the past decade.

The first paper, “Ethnic Differences in Substance Use among Pacific Islander Adolescents: A Mediational Analysis”, describes differences in substance use among major ethnocultural groups in the State of Hawaii. This presentation highlights ethnic specific mediators to substance abuse, which have implications for the development of culturally specific substance abuse prevention in Hawaii.

The second paper, “The Development of Videos in Culturally Grounded Drug Prevention for Rural Hawaiian Youth “, describes the development of video components of the Hoouna Pono Drug Prevention Curriculum. Building off of the findings from the first paper, this paper highlights how the video components were developed and grounded in the social and cultural ecology of rural Hawaiian youth, and the relevance of the videos for culturally grounded resistance skills training.

The third paper, “The Puni Ke Ola Pilot Project”, describes the development of a culturally grounded prevention program using community- and indigenous-based research principles and practices. Using qualitative methods and a Hawaiian epistemological framework, this project describes the efforts of rural communities to address substance use and abuse.

At the conclusion of the presentations, the discussant will summarize the presentations and facilitate a discussion between the presenters and the symposium attendees. This symposium will attract prevention researchers with an interest in the development and testing of empirically based prevention interventions for NHOPI youth and families, and contributes to NIH’s overall goal of eliminating health disparities.