Session: Prevention Science Approaches to Increasing Health Equity for American Indian and Alaska Native Populations: Innovative Approaches from Native Investigators (Society for Prevention Research 26th Annual Meeting)

SESSION INTRODUCTION: This forum highlights prevention science approaches to promote health equity for American Indians and Alaska Natives (AIAN). Studies address a wide range of disparities, involve diverse AIAN populations, and span the continuum of prevention science. One thread, however, ties them together. Lead authors are all AIAN researchers. These investigators uniquely blend scientific and cultural perspectives to ensure that rigorous and culturally appropriate methods are leveraged to promote health equity for AIAN populations.

Three posters have an etiological frame, examining risk and protective factors in this population to inform tailored prevention. Paper 1, “’Then who are you?’: Conversations about dating and relationships with young American Indian and Alaska Native women,” used a qualitative approach to lay the foundation for creating teen dating violence prevention programs for AIAN adolescents. Paper 2, “Gender differences in the effects of risk factors on American Indian youths’ engagement in delinquency,” capitalized on existing data to explore gender differences in risk for delinquency among AI youth, with implications for tailoring prevention efforts. Paper 3, “Composition and Accumulation of Childhood Stressors and Associations with Health Outcomes among American Indian Adults with Type-two diabetes,” took a long view of risk factors on health, using latent class analysis to identify profiles of early childhood risk for later negative health outcomes.

Two posters focus on implementation. Paper 4, “A Community Engagement Approach to Maximizing Design Rigor within a Multi-Site Evaluation of Tribal Home Visiting,” reports on the effectiveness of a stakeholder-engaged process for designing an implementation study. Paper 5, “CONNECT: Implementation and Process Outcomes of a School-Based Alcohol Screening and Brief Intervention for Youth in Cherokee Nation,” describes the implementation process in a tribal community.

Two posters highlight tailoring evaluation approaches. Paper 6, “An Alaska Native Suicide Prevention Program Evaluation using a Network Approach,” used a social network approach in evaluating an intervention, recognizing the interconnected nature of the AN community. Paper 7, “Reducing the Impact of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities on Heath in Tribal Communities,” examined intervention at the systems level, highlighting the unique service ecologies of AIAN communities and the need to tailor systemic interventions accordingly.

The discussant will moderate a discussion about the overlapping themes across these posters and the larger context of prevention science applied to health equity in AIAN populations.