Currently, no national-level database exists with sufficient comparable measures of adolescent substance use, and risk and protective factors for the diverse Asian Americans and Pacific Islander (AAPI) groups. Fortunately, several State Needs Assessment Surveys initiated by the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment and the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention contain ethnic sub-groupings of the AAPI. This paper reports results from the 1998 Hawaii Student Alcohol and Drug Use Study, based on over 25,000 public and private 6th, 8th, 10th and 12th graders residing in Hawaii. Substance use, intervention needs, and risk and protective factor profiles are compared among Native Hawaiians, Filipinos, Japanese, Chinese, and Caucasians. Lifetime, monthly, and daily prevalence reports for any illicit drug use are highest for Hawaiian and Caucasian students and lowest for Japanese and Chinese students. Based on self-reports, 30% of Hawaiian and 28% of Caucasian 10th graders, and 20% of Filipino 10th graders were classified as dependent on or abusers of alcohol, drugs, or both according to the DSM-III-R criteria. These rates were substantially higher than the rates among Japanese (15%) and Chinese (10%) students. Risk and protective factors are relatively well correlated with patterns of substance use among ethnic-specific categories. The Chinese and Japanese students reported the highest protective factor and lowest risk factor scores. Hawaiian, Filipino and Caucasian students reported mixed risk and protective profiles. These findings need replication in other regions to assess the applicability of the present risk and protective factor measures to diverse AAPI populations.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the presentation, participants will be able to: 1. Recognize the limitations prevalent in available substance abuse and mental health data for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI). 2. Describe the comparative rates of substance use and mental disorders for five AAPI sub-groups as found in the 1992 National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey (NLAES). 3. Relate differences in AAPI substance use levels to acculturation indices. 4. Describe at least two AAPI stereotypes rebutted by NLAES data
Keywords: Asian and Pacific Islander, Adolescents
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.