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Connecting Across Cultures: Studying Substance Abuse among Immigrant Communities
HHD has just launched the Connecting
Across Cultures website, which focuses on issues of immigrant
and refugee populations and substance abuse. The website is
the result of three years of work by HHD’s Deborah McLean Leow.
ATOD Use among Immigrant Populations:
- Rates of alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drug use
are lower among immigrants than U.S.-born adults
- However, the longer immigrants live in the U.S.,
the higher their rates of substance abuse become:
- Immigrants living in the U.S. for 5+ years are
more likely to abuse alcohol and illicit drugs than
those living here for less than 5 year
Source: 1999-2001 The National Survey on
Drug Use and Health
(Brown et al)
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McLean Leow recently completed a three-year fellowship with the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) in which she developed her skills
as a leader in substance abuse prevention. With the fellowship
funding, McLean Leow developed the Connecting Across Cultures project
to study substance abuse among immigrant populations in the U.S.
Connecting Across Cultures is dedicated to understanding
the needs and strengths of underserved immigrant and refugee
families as they adjust to life in the U.S., and to exploring
the effects of acculturation on substance use and related health
and safety issues. Specifically, the project:
- Examines the impact of acculturation on alcohol, tobacco, and other
drug (ATOD) use, and access to ATOD and related health and human services
- Explores strategies to reduce the negative health outcomes associated
with the acculturative change process
- Takes into account the rapid growth of children in immigrant families
in nearly every state in the country, which is predicted to significantly
change the demographic make up of the country
“Connecting Across Cultures improves our capacity to
serve diverse populations by focusing on the importance of and responding
to the unique needs of new immigrants to our country,” says Judy
Schector, Director of Developing Leadership in Reducing Substance
Abuse at RWJF.
The project has two components: the website that is dedicated to
improving the health and well-being of immigrant populations in
the U.S., and a research study on acculturation, parenting, and
ATOD service access and utilization.
The first component, the Connecting Across Cultures website,
is designed to give service providers and policy-makers ready access
to state-of-the-art information in key areas including:
- Current research on immigrants, acculturation, parenting, ATOD
use and related health behaviors
- Products and informational materials, including webinars and presentations,
that offer practical guidance about service delivery to immigrants
and other racial/ethnic “minority” populations
- Links to funders, professional associations, and other national organizations
that focus on issues of culture, cultural diversity, and immigrant
health
The website is the go-to location for anyone interested in how acculturation
affects substance use among immigrant and refugee populations. The
site also provides information on reducing negative health outcomes
among immigrant populations and provides various resources for more information
on the topic.
The second component, the New Jersey Immigrant Health
Promotion Project, is a community-based research project conducted
among five counties in New Jersey with 100 parents from Latin America
and the Caribbean. Through
interviews and participant surveys, McLean Leow is examining how
levels of acculturation affect parenting skills and participants’ access
and utilization of ATOD services. The results will be used to inform
the development and enhancement of culturally-relevant ATOD and
related services for immigrant families and their children.
RWJF
provided the fellowship through its Developing Leadership in Reducing
Substance Abuse program, which aims to nurture public health professionals
in the substance abuse field. “We need leaders
in the substance abuse field who mirror the population of our country. A
key goal of this RWJF Developing Leadership program is to increase
the reach of a more diverse group of leaders because we know that this
will increase our ability to serve the needs of the diverse populations,” says
RWJF’s Schector.
McLean Leow, Associate Director of HHD’s Northeast
Center for the Application of Prevention Technologies (NECAPT), has
dedicated her professional life to preventing health risk behaviors
such as substance abuse and HIV and AIDS. The Developing Leadership
program further developed her capacity in the field by providing opportunities
to work with colleagues, mentors, and community members on understanding
how living in the U.S. affects substance abuse among immigrants, an
issue of great importance to McLean Leow. Throughout the process
of developing and implementing the program components, McLean Leow
relied on colleagues and mentors from the Developing Leadership program
to provide feedback and leadership assessments on her work.
“The Developing Leadership process allowed me to perform passion-driven
work that is connected to my own experience and to the communities that
I know well. Connecting to community – to my culture and
to my experience as an immigrant – is what fuels me and will drive
my work for some time to come,” says McLean Leow, who plans to
continue her work on health risk behaviors affecting immigrants and minorities.
To learn more about Connecting Across Cultures contact Deborah
McLean Leow.
January 23 , 2007
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