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Factors Leading to Adolescent Drug Abuse in Winooski Vermont
Methods: Three focus groups gathered input from different agencies within Winooski, Vermont. Potential participants were identified by the WCSPC who had knowledge of problems and different perspectives on contributing risk factors. Focus groups were comprised of three unique components of the Winooski community: members of the social/education and justice community, healthcare community, and recovering addicts. Based on the Social Cognitive Theory, each focus group discussed 14 questions. Three facilitators led each focus group. Participants consented their voluntary participation, and completed a short demographic questionnaire. Recordings from each session were transcribed, de-identified, and analyzed.
Results: Focus group participants were 58% female and 42% male; 72% had a college degree or more. In thematic analysis, the most commonly identified risk factors for initiating drug use in teens included: the common knowledge of several public locations in the community as places to obtain drugs, the ease of access to drugs, poor access to extracurricular activities and transportation, mental health issues, and an apparent lack of development of appropriate coping skills.
Conclusion: Findings stressed importance of strong role models. Availability and access to afterschool programs are important in preventing drug initiation. We recommend using these findings when developing strategies to prevent drug use in adolescents living in Winooski, Vermont.
Learning Areas:
Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programsPublic health or related education
Public health or related research
Social and behavioral sciences
Systems thinking models (conceptual and theoretical models), applications related to public health
Learning Objectives:
Discuss how collaboration with a community coalition may help identify strategies to prevent and reduce drug abuse.
Describe the process used to select stakeholders and individuals for participation in focus groups to identify risk factors for drug use.
Identify themes from focus groups to help prevent drug initiation.
Formulate strategies for implementing this approach in other communities.
Keyword(s): Community-Based Partnership & Collaboration, Drug Abuse Prevention and Safety
Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I participated in the design, implementation, collection and analysis of data, writing, and presentation of the project.
Any relevant financial relationships? No
I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.