The Protective Effect of Ethnic Identity on Drug Attitudes and Use: Does the Protective Effect Exist Among All Racial/Ethnic Groups?

Introduction: Ethnic identity is an important buffer against various health outcomes, including drug use, among youth populations (Smith & Silva, 2011). The most consistent findings have been observed among African American youth (e.g., Burlew et al., 2000). Limited work has been conducted among Asian and Native American youth, with inconsistent findings found for Multiracial (e.g., Choi et al., 2006) and White (e.g., Prelow et al., 2007) youth. Additionally, it is unclear what are the pathways through which ethnic identity mitigates risk for drug use. The current study utilized a large diverse sample of youth to examine both the direct and indirect effect of ethnic identity on drug attitudes and past month drug use.

Method: School-aged youth between grades 4 and 12 provided data on ethnic identity, drug attitudes, and drug use. Surveys were administered every year over the course of 5 years. For the current study, data were provided by 34,708 youth (African American (n=5333), Asian (n=392), Hispanic (n=662), Multiracial (n=2129), Native American (n=474) and White (n=25718)) across all waves of data collection.

Results: After controlling for gender and grade, higher ethnic identity was associated with lower past month drug use for African American (β = -7.46, p < .001), Hispanic (β = -3.21, p = .001), and Multiracial (β = -5.92, p < .001) youth. A null effect was found for Asian American (β = -1.76, p = .078) and Native American (β = -1.88, p = .06) youth. For White youth, the opposite relationship was observed, with greater ethnic identity associated with higher drug use (β = 6.95, p < .001). A significant indirect pathway between ethnic identity, drug attitudes, and drug use was also found for African American (b = -4.31, 95% Boot CI = -.14, -.05), Hispanic (b = -2.63, 95% Boot CI = -.31, -.05), and Asian (b = -2.25, 95% Boot CI = -.49, -.03) youth. A null indirect effect was observed for Multiracial (b = 0.03, 95% Boot CI = -.08, .07) and Native American (b = -1.11, 95% Boot CI = -.25, .07) youth. Among White youth the path model was also significant, but in the opposite direction (b = 2.62, 95% Boot CI = .00, .003).

Conclusion: These findings confirm the importance of ethnic identity for most minority youth. However, ethnic identity provided neither a protective direct or indirect effect on drug use for Native American youth. Thus, a more nuanced investigation on the conceptualization and developmental process of ethnic identity on drug use outcomes in warranted for this subgroup of youth. Moreover, ethnic identity was found to be a risk factor for White youth. Further research is need to understand how to facilitate healthy ethnic identity development for minority youth and moderate the risk of identity development for White youth.