Research & Resources

Cultural Identity Affiliation and Alcohol Use and Related Consequences Among American Indian and White Adolescents: A Latent Profile Analysis

Researchers studied Native American reservation-based youth to determine the protective roles of communal mastery (i.e., a sense of shared efficacy) and tribal identity on high-risk substance use, illicit drug use, and binge drinking. When controlling for childhood trauma and school attendance, higher levels of tribal identity were significantly associated with lower odds of polysubstance use. Overall prevalence of polysubstance use was 50%, and binge drinking had the highest single substance prevalence (66%). Findings indicate programs focused on promoting education engagement, communal mastery, and tribal identity may mitigate substance use for Native American adolescents living in high-risk, reservation-based settings.

This paper, “Cultural identity affiliation and alcohol use and related consequences among American Indian and White adolescents: A latent profile analysis,” was funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and experimental research.

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