DRUG ABUSE AMONG LATINOS

University Of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles CA

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Abstract

Secondary analyses will be undertaken of several major Latino drug use databases to broaden our understanding of risk and protective influences on drug use among the many diverse subgroups of Latinos in the U.S. and other countries. It is planned to identify drug use patterns within major U.S. Latino subgroups (e.g. Mexican Americans, Cubans, and Puerto Ricans); to more clearly understand how drug use varies with demographic variables and generational status for these Latino subgroups; to identify a set of risk and protective factors for each major subsample of U.S. Latinos that this common across databases; to understand how protective factors may influence risk factors to reduce risk for drug use for each group of Latinos; to evaluate the adequacy of existing theoretical models in accounting for drug use among Latino subgroups; to identify culture-specific models for drug use using structural modeling techniques for each of the Latino samples; to uncover similarities and differences existing between the models for each Latino sample/subgroup; and to compare multivariate models of drug use for Latino Americans to a model of drug use for Latinos in the country of origin.