Immediate effects of a culturally-specific Mexican American parenting intervention on the substance use behaviors of their preadolescent children

Background: Latino youth have a marked overrepresentation for substance use in the US. In response, researchers and practitioners have begun efforts to effectively strengthen protective factors and reduce risk for substance use and other problem behaviors. Purpose: The purpose is to test the immediate results of the efficacy trial of a culturally-specific parenting intervention called Families Preparing the New Generation, which was designed to increase the effects of keepin'it REAL, an efficacious school-based drug abuse prevention intervention targeting middle school students. Methodology: The participating parents (N=468) were recent Mexican immigrants and resided in a large urban center in the Southwest US. Children (N=837) were assigned to three groups: Parent/Youth, Youth Only, or Control. Findings: OLS regression was used to test if students randomly assigned to the Parent/Youth condition demonstrated more favorable drug use outcomes than their counterparts who were assigned to the Youth Only or to the Control conditions. Students assigned to the Parent/Youth condition had a significant lower rate of substance use initiation than students in the Youth Only and Control groups. Significance and Conclusions: These preliminary results support the assumption that involving parents in prevention efforts have a major effect in strengthen the efficacy of the classroom based intervention. The culturally specific nature of the intervention is also indentified as contributing to the strong boost given by the parent component to the original child-focused intervention. The article analyzes these findings from an ecological perspective and discusses specific prevention intervention, policy, and future research implications.