American Indian Community Engagement in the Vaping Endgame

Overview

The University of Southern California (USC) and Resources for Indian Student Education, Inc. (RISE) are collaborating with Modoc Joint Unified School District in Modoc County to pilot a vaping intervention and education project in an effort to answer the two following research questions: 1) What is the effect of a culturally relevant youth intervention and community-based campaign on individual-level knowledge, attitudes and behavioral intentions to use commercial tobacco and/or vape? and 2) What are the barriers to successful collaborations with area schools and what strategies were implemented to overcome the barriers?

The Pilot Community-Partnered Participatory Research Award (CPPRA) focuses on a rural setting, engaging with both adult and youth American Indian (AI) community members to develop, implement, and pilot test two interventions while developing and/or strengthening relationships with local schools. With our established community-academic partnership, USC and RISE are collaborating on developing a multipronged approach to engage the AI community in the formulation of a campaign (i.e., presentations and interventions) to work toward the Endgame movement. A youth-based, culturally relevant intervention will be piloted in an attempt to bring further collaborations between the school district and RISE programs while providing meaningful and necessary services to the youth. The campaign will use community-based participatory research (CBPR) to gather data from the community to inform the agenda and topics of town halls and classroom presentations. All evaluations will be provided to CAB and YAT members for review and input on appropriateness of content and cultural inclusion.