Risk and Protective Factors, Substance Use, and Problem Behaviors Among Small-Town and Rural Latino Youth

Background: Over the past two decades, the demographic composition of small and rural communities in the U.S. has changed dramatically, in part because of the large in-migration of Latino families into the rural hinterlands. This accelerating diversity involves both new opportunities and challenges for small and rural towns. It is important to understand the challenges rural Latino youth face as well as their strengths in order to help the communities support the factors that promote the youths’ positive development and reduce factors that hinder it. Yet, we know very little about rural Latino youths’ lives. The goal of this poster is to provide insight into how they are faring using survey data from 12 small and rural communities across 7 US states.

Methods and Results: Data came from a longitudinal panel of 5^th grade students first surveyed in 2004 as part of a randomized trial of the Communities That Care (CTC) prevention system. We analyzed data from the 1910 students (26% Latino, N=490) living in the 12 control communities. Preliminary bivariate analyses compared Latino and non-Latino youths’ mean scores on 31 risk and protective factor (RPF) scales in community, school, family, peer, and individual domains measured in 6^th grade. We also examined differences in the prevalence of 7^th grade lifetime and past month substance use and past year problem behaviors such as being drunk or high at school, having been suspended, and having stolen something worth more than $5.

Preliminary analyses indicated that rural Latino youth had significantly higher levels of risk and lower levels of protective factors across all domains than non-Latino youth on 24 out of 31 RPFs (including higher levels of community disorganization, fewer opportunities and rewards for prosocial involvement in family, community and peer, although not school, domains). Latino youth also were significantly more likely than non-Latino youth to have used alcohol in the past month (OR=3.33) and to have ever used alcohol (OR=2.00), cigarettes (OR=1.85), and marijuana by 7^th grade (OR=2.03). The past-year prevalence of being drunk or high at school (OR=1.63), having been suspended (OR=1.50), and having stolen something worth more than $5 (OR=2.30) was also higher for Latino than non-Latino youth.

Follow-up analyses to be included on the poster will examine whether RPFs explain differences between Latino and non-Latino youth in substance use and problem behaviors using multivariate multilevel models that account for the nesting of students in communities and control for pertinent socio-demographic characteristics such as parental education.

Conclusions: The implications of these findings for prevention programming in small and rural towns and testing the universality of CTC will be discussed.