Two-part models identifying predictors of cigarette, e-cigarette, and cannabis use and change in use over time among young adults in the US

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Limited longitudinal research has examined differential interpersonal and intrapersonal correlates of young adult use and use frequency of cigarettes, e-cigarettes, and cannabis. This study aimed to address these limitations.

METHODS

We analyzed five waves of longitudinal data (2018-2020) among 3006 US young adults (Mage = 24.55, 44% male, 32% sexual minority, ~30% racial/ethnic minority). Two-part latent growth models examined likelihood of past-month cigarette, e-cigarette, and cannabis use (binary part) and days used (continuous part) and identified predictors (depressive symptoms, personality traits, adverse childhood experiences [ACEs], parental use) of baseline use and changes over time.

RESULTS

Regarding baseline past-month use (27% cigarettes, 38% e-cigarettes, 39% cannabis), depressive symptoms, ACEs, and parental substance use predicted use outcomes (i.e., likelihood, frequency) for each product; extraversion predicted cigarette and e-cigarette use outcomes; openness predicted e-cigarette and cannabis use outcomes; conscientiousness negatively predicted cigarette and cannabis use outcomes; and agreeableness negatively predicted cannabis use frequency. Regarding longitudinal changes, conscientiousness predicted accelerated increase of cigarette use frequency at later timepoints; depressive symptoms predicted increases in likelihood of e-cigarette use but the association weakened over time; and parental cannabis use predicted decreased cannabis use frequency but the association weakened over time.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

Young adult substance use interventions should target high-risk subgroups and focus on distinct factors impacting use, including chronic, escalating, and decreasing use.

SCIENTIFIC SIGNIFICANCE

This study advances the literature regarding distinct predictors of different substance use outcomes and provides unique data to inform interventions targeting young adult cigarette, e-cigarette, and cannabis use.

Assessing Brigada Digital de Salud Audience Reach and Engagement: A Digital Community Health Worker Model to Address COVID-19 Misinformation in Spanish on Social Media

U.S. Spanish-speaking populations experienced gaps in timely COVID-19 information during the pandemic and disproportionate misinformation exposure. Brigada Digital de Salud was established to address these gaps with culturally tailored, Spanish-language COVID-19 information on social media. From 1 May 2021 to 30 April 2023, 495 Twitter, 275 Facebook, and 254 Instagram posts were published and amplified by 10 trained community health workers. A qualitative content analysis was performed to characterize the topics and formats of 251 posts. To assess reach and engagement, page analytics and advertising metrics for 287 posts were examined. Posts predominantly addressed vaccination (49.45%), infection risks (19.12%), and COVID-related scientific concepts (12.84%). Posts were educational (48.14%) and aimed to engage audiences (23.67%), promote resources (12.76%), and debunk misinformation (9.04%). Formats included images/text (55.40%), carousels (27.50%), and videos (17.10%). By 9 June 2023, 394 Facebook, 419 Instagram, and 228 Twitter followers included mainly women ages 24-54. Brigada Digital reached 386,910 people with 552,037 impressions and 96,868 engagements, including 11,292 likes, 15,240 comments/replies, 9718 shares/retweets, and 45,381 video play-throughs. The most engaging posts included videos with audio narration, healthcare providers, influencers, or music artists. This community-based model to engage Spanish-speaking audiences on social media with culturally aligned content to counter misinformation shows promise for addressing public health threats.

The Adelante project: Realities, challenges and successes in addressing health disparities among central American immigrant youth

OBJECTIVE

The Adelante intervention, implemented between 2013 and 2018, addressed an important syndemic health disparity for Central American immigrant youth approaching or in high school-the co-occurrence of substance abuse, sex risk (pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, HIV), and interpersonal violence. Adelante was implemented and evaluated by the Avance Center for the Advancement of Immigrant/Refugee Health, which built on a university-community partnership that has been in place since 2005. Using a tailored, ecological positive youth development (PYD) approach, Adelante employed intervention strategies across ecological levels, including individual, family, peer, and community levels, with the use of social marketing and digital media strategies to link activities under one aspirational identity and support community engagement.

METHOD

Using a Community Based Participatory Research approach with multiple community partners involved in the effort, the research assessed changes in co-occurring behavioral outcomes and tested hypotheses concerning relationships between PYD mediators and these outcomes. Multiple methods were used in collaboration with partners to assess intervention inputs and outcomes-detailed implementation process records; prepost surveys to assess changes in PYD assets, risk behavior knowledge, and prevention skills; a community survey in the intervention and comparison communities (total N = 3,600) at baseline and two follow-up waves; surveys of a high risk cohort (n = 238) at baseline and follow-up; and social marketing campaign surveys (n = 1,549) at baseline with 2 follow-up waves.

RESULTS

Analysis showed multiple improvements in PYD mediators and risk behavior outcomes, including an overall 70% increase in knowledge and a 15% increase in prevention skills. Preliminary analysis of risk behavior outcomes demonstrated, for example, a significant, inverse effect on reported sexual activity (past 3 months) for both Adelante intervention community and cohort samples. In addition, self-reported exposure to the social marketing campaign was associated with positive effects on multiple outcomes, including drug use risk and violence attitudes, and improvement in violence/sexual risk behavior outcomes in the intervention versus comparison community.

CONCLUSION

There are few models in the literature that provide a roadmap for how to address multiple, related health conditions in marginalized, immigrant communities, even as most health disparities are associated with complex social ecologies. The Adelante intervention adds a useful model of this nature to the evidence base, and provides support for the ecological approach to PYD with respect to such communities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Understanding modern contraception uptake in one Ethiopian community: a case study

BACKGROUND

In the last decade, the proportion of Ethiopian women using contraceptive methods has increased substantially (from 14% in 2005 to 35% in 2016 among married women). Numerous factors have contributed to the increased uptake. An important one is the implementation of the Health Extension Program, a government-led health service delivery strategy that has deployed more than 38,000 health extension workers (HEWs) throughout the country. Key mechanisms underlying the success of this program are not well understood. Using a case study approach, the goal of this study is to describe how key features of local contexts, community perceptions, and messaging by HEWs have contributed to the increased use of modern contraception in one community in Ethiopia.

METHODS

We conducted focus groups and individual interviews with men, women, adolescents, and key informants, including (HEWs), in Oromia, Ethiopia. We used a random sampling protocol to recruit all participants except key informants, with whom purposive sampling was used to ensure participants were knowledgeable on family planning in the village. Interviews were audio recorded, translated, transcribed, and then analyzed using applied thematic analysis and NVivo v.11 qualitative research software.

RESULTS

We identified four themes that may explain uptake of contraception: (1) HEWs are seen as trusted and valued community members who raised awareness about family planning; (2) the HEW messaging that contraception is useful to space pregnancies among married women was effective; (3) the message that spacing is healthy for mother and child was also effective; and (4) communicating to the entire community (including men, women, adolescents, and religious leaders), contributed to changing attitudes around contraception.

CONCLUSION

The four aspects of the Health Extension Program approach increased uptake of contraception in our sample. In contexts where community health workers are valued by the health systems and local communities they serve, this type of approach to widening modern contraception use could help increase uptake and address unmet need. Understanding these granular aspects of the program in one local context may help explain how use of contraception increased in the country as a whole.

Development of the place-based Adelante social marketing campaign for prevention of substance use, sexual risk and violence among Latino immigrant youth

Immigrant Latino youth represent a high-risk subgroup that should be targeted with health promotion efforts. However, there are considerable barriers to engagement in health-related programming. Little is known about the engagement possibilities of social marketing campaigns and digital strategies for traditionally 'hard-to-reach' immigrants, underscoring the importance of testing these techniques with immigrant Latino adolescents. We developed and piloted a place-based social marketing campaign in coordination with the branded, Positive Youth Development-based (PYD) Adelante intervention targeting risk factors for co-occurring youth substance abuse, sexual risk and violence. Building on prior research, we conducted a four-phase formative research process, and planned the Adelante social marketing campaign based on findings from one group interview and ongoing consultation with Adelante staff (n=8) and four focus groups with youth (n=35). Participants identified four overarching campaign themes, and suggested portrayal of resilient, proud youth who achieved goals despite adversity. Youth guided selection of campaign features and engagement strategies, including message/visual content, stylistic elements, and a mixed language approach. We developed a 12-month campaign to be delivered via print ads, multi-platform social media promotion, contests, youth-generated videos, blog posts, and text messaging. We describe the process and outcome of campaign development and make recommendations for future campaigns.

Evaluating the effectiveness of a community-based hygiene promotion program in a rural Salvadoran setting

There has been considerable progress in the reduction of diarrheal disease among children under five through health and nutrition interventions. However, diarrheal disease is still the second leading cause of child death worldwide. There is growing recognition that comprehensive hygiene behavior improvements should be integral to prevention efforts, but the effectiveness of different approaches for hygiene promotion is still being established. Hygiene risk practices vary across settings, suggesting that prevention strategies should be adapted to local contexts using community-based approaches. We planned, implemented, and evaluated a hygiene promotion intervention using the hygiene cluster framework. The two-year, multi-level intervention was implemented by local health promoters who were involved in identifying and addressing disease transmission risks at the household, school, and community levels. The intervention was evaluated using a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design with repeated follow-up assessments to determine changes in hygiene knowledge and behavior. A household survey instrument was administered at three time points in the intervention ( n = 480) and comparison ( n = 271) communities to assess two hygiene knowledge and eleven hygiene behavior outcome variables. We used one-way analysis of variance with post hoc analysis using Tukey's HSD for multiple comparisons to examine change and differences over time. We also fit a linear regression model to identify statistically significant differences. Study results demonstrated improvements in the areas of: knowledge of disease transmission and key times for handwashing, water container hygiene, sanitation practices, personal hygiene and food hygiene. The hygiene cluster framework is useful for hygiene promotion intervention planning and evaluation, and we recommended continued testing of this framework across contexts. We also recommend local community participatory approaches, as well as in-depth formative behavioral assessments by hygiene cluster that also consider environmental barriers to behavior change.

Applying Ecological Positive Youth Development Theory to Address Co-Occurring Health Disparities Among Immigrant Latino Youth

This article outlines the theory and resulting approach employed in a multilevel, integrated, collaborative community intervention called Adelante, implemented by a university-community partnership in a Latino immigrant community to address co-occurring health disparities of substance abuse, sex risk, and interpersonal violence among youth. The basis for the intervention is a social-ecological interpretation of positive youth development theory, which focuses on changes in the person environment context and community assets as a preventive mechanism. This approach is viewed as appropriate for a community facing multiple barriers to health equity. The article describes the translation of this positive youth development model to practice, including the design of the intervention, intervention components, and the protocol for evaluation. The Adelante intervention is intended to reduce health disparities and, in addition, to add a broader community model to the evidence base.

Using a Qualitative Approach to Develop an Evaluation Data Set for Community-Based Health Promotion Programs Addressing Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities

Racial and ethnic disparities in health have increasingly become a central focus of health promotion efforts. At the community level, however, collecting data and evaluating these programs has been a challenge because of the diversity of populations, community contexts, and health issues as well as a range of capacities for conducting evaluation. This article outlines a qualitative research process used to develop a Web-based standard program performance data reporting system for programs funded by the U.S. Office of Minority Health (OMH), but generally applicable to community-based health promotion programs addressing health disparities. The “core-and-module” data set, known as the Uniform Data Set (UDS), is a Web-based system and is used as the programwide reporting system for OMH. The process for developing the UDS can be used by any agency, locality, or organization to develop a tailored data collection system allowing comparison across projects via an activity-based typology around which data reporting is structured. The UDS model enables the collection of grounded data reflecting community-level steps necessary to address disparities as well as a reporting structure that can guide data collection based on broader frameworks now emerging that specify criteria for measuring progress toward the elimination of health disparities.

A model for understanding sexual health among Asian American/Pacific Islander men who have sex with men (MSM) in the United States

The model to understand sexual health among Asian American/Pacific Islander men who have sex with men first locates the dynamic process in the home country, with its prevailing cultural norms including sexual mores, shame or stigma, sexual attitudes, sexual behavior, and drug use/abuse. Second, these cultural norms are modified by the migration/immigration experience. Third, these norms, beliefs, and practices are continually influenced by the process of acculturation as these men try to adjust to life in the United States. The effects of the first two domains may vary by the degree to which a particular immigrant community remains socially and culturally insulated from the mainstream community. Conceivably, the effect of home country and migration/immigration would be less significant for those who were either very young at the time of immigration or are born in the United States.