Session: Culturally Grounded Prevention Interventions for Indigenous Populations (Society for Prevention Research 26th Annual Meeting)

Culturally grounded prevention programs are built from the values, beliefs, and worldviews of the populations they are intended to serve (Okamoto, Kulis, Marsiglia, Holleran-Steiker, & Dustman, 2014). The goal of this symposium session is to describe the development of three Native-specific, culturally grounded interventions within the prevention cycle. Highlighting efforts across two states (Alaska and Hawai‘i), this symposium brings together researchers and community members from multiple research teams and institutions who have actively been pursuing indigenous prevention science over several decades.

The first paper, “Drawing upon Protection from Within: Indigenous Intervention Development of the Qungasvik (Toolbox) Prevention Approach for Rural Alaska Native Communities”, describes the development of Qungasvik, a culturally grounded, suicide and substance abuse prevention intervention for Yup’ik Alaska Native youth. The presentation focuses on the process of intervention development and implementation targeting multiple systemic levels (i.e., individual, family, and community) within distinct, rural Yup’ik communities in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region of Alaska. The presentation highlights how Qungasvik addresses cultural variability within each rural community through its grounded approach to prevention development.

The second paper, “The Evaluation of the Ho‘ouna Pono Drug Prevention Curriculum: One-Year Preliminary Findings “, describes the mid-term findings of an efficacy trial of a culturally grounded, school-based prevention curriculum for rural Hawaiian youth (Ho‘ouna Pono). The preliminary findings were consistent with past pilot evaluation research of the curriculum, which found that the curriculum promoted youths’ consideration of the consequences of accepting drug offers, such as negative reactions from cousins. The curriculum also promoted the use of non-confrontational drug resistance strategies, such as explaining reasons for refusing drug offers or redirecting the conversation away from drug use.

The third paper, “Using a Native Hawaiian Cultural Practice to Prevent Cardiovascular Disease: The KāHOLO Project”, describes the development and pilot findings of using hula, the traditional dance of Hawai‘i, to reduce systolic blood pressure in Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders with uncontrolled hypertension. Findings indicated that hula significantly improved hypertension management and social functioning, and led to decreases in perceived ethnic discrimination.

This symposium will attract prevention researchers with an interest in the development and testing of empirically based prevention interventions for Native youth and families, and contributes to NIH’s overall goal of eliminating health disparities.