American Indian Community Engagement in the Vaping Endgame

Overview

Description:

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. 

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Evaluation of Two Tribal MAT Grants

Evaluation of Two Tribal MAT Grants

The USC team will also conduct a program evaluation to assess grantee efforts as well as successes and areas for improvement in both the NMAT and TUICDBP grants. Regarding grantee efforts, the USC team seeks to understand strengths, challenges, and key takeaways of grantee approaches to implementing community-defined best practices.

Substance Use Disorder Policy Advocacy Training Program

Substance Use Disorder Policy Advocacy Training Program

USC is delivering the Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Policy Advocacy Training Program to address the need for policy advocates focused on SUD issues in California’s American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) communities.

Collaboration Improvement Project

Collaboration Improvement Project

Challenges around collaboration between state/local entities and American Indian/Alaska Native (AIAN) Tribal nations and Tribal/Urban Indian organizations are common nationwide and span many areas of work. Seeking to learn more about and address some of these challenges, the USC Keck School of Medicine will carry out a project to explore and address some of these challenges as they relate to substance use disorder/opioid use disorder in California.