# Substance Use Among American Indian Youth: Epidemiology & Etiology

> **NIH NIH R01** · COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $722,506

## Abstract

Project Summary
 Substance use (SU) rates among American Indian (AI) adolescents have been greater than national rates
for decades, and recent evidence indicates that some SU disparities are increasing for AI adolescents living on
or near reservations (hereafter reservation). Given the changing nature of SU and the unique influences on this
population (e.g., factors specific to reservation life), continued surveillance and dissemination of SU rates for
these youth is vitally important to inform prevention, treatment, and policy efforts.
 The proposed study is a renewal of a large-scale epidemiological study of SU among reservation AI
adolescents, the only study of its kind. Each year, nationally-representative rates of SU for reservation AI
adolescents will be obtained and compared with national rates measured by Monitoring the Future (MTF) in
order to identify areas of special concern for reservation AI adolescents. The sample will be expanded to
include 6th graders due to early initiation rates of AI youth. The study will move beyond basic epidemiology to
include additional analyses of low-base rate/high-risk SU (e.g., methamphetamine, opioids) and heavy
marijuana use, examining simultaneous and co-occurring use, predictors of use, and consequences of use.
Because data are gathered from a wide variety of contexts (e.g., reservations), a comprehensive multilevel
analysis examining relationships of school/community factors will be conducted, building on epidemiologic
models. The findings from these analyses will provide essential information for reducing health disparities that
result from structural and economic inequities, policy, and allocation of resources.
 Building etiologic evidence for effective intervention to address high rates of adolescent AI SU is also a
fundamental part of this project. Although AI adolescents are influenced by broader society, unique individual,
cultural, geographic, economic, and other factors influence SU and its correlates and consequences.
Moreover, there has been limited focus on understanding how positive characteristics related to strength and
resilience serve as protective or promotive factors for AI adolescents. Etiologic models, based on eco-systemic
resilience theory, will be used to assess the role of individual, cultural and collective measures of strength and
resilience to identify relationships to SU and delayed or nonuse. Measures of low-base rate/high-risk and
heavy marijuana use will be included as dependent variables in these analyses. An ongoing discussion among
AI researchers is the need for systematic analysis of the role of racial-ethnic and cultural identity in SU
behaviors; therefore, this study will give special emphasis to assessing psychometric properties of measures of
racial/ethnic identity that have been used successfully for prediction in this and other populations.
 Project findings will be disseminated to key stakeholders, with special emphasis on tribal and non-tribal
entities inv...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10456877
- **Project number:** 5R01DA003371-34
- **Recipient organization:** COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Mark A Prince
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $722,506
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 1983-09-01 → 2025-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10456877

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10456877, Substance Use Among American Indian Youth: Epidemiology & Etiology (5R01DA003371-34). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10456877. Licensed CC0.

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