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Acculturation Factors and Substance Use Among Asian American Youth

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Abstract

In this study of 329 Cambodian, Chinese, Laotian/Mien, and Vietnamese youth in Oakland, California, acculturation factors of individualism-collectivism and acculturative dissonance were examined as risk and protective factors for substance use. Results of structural equation modeling and bootstrapping revealed that peer substance use was a robust mediator between individualism and youth’s self-reported substance use, particularly among Vietnamese and males. Peer substance use also significantly mediated the relation between collectivism and substance use for females. As such, there appears to be ethnic and gender group variations in the saliency of cultural/acculturation factors with respect to substance use. Implications for substance use prevention programs for ethnic and immigrant youth are discussed.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful for the assistance of Isami Arifuku, Mary Lai, Lila Booth, and the 18 field interviewers and interns who assisted in conducting this study. We also extend appreciation to Judi Wood for providing literature support. This publication was supported by Grant R49/CCR918619-01 from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA; UO1AA014289-01), and the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD). Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the funding agencies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Colorado State University, 1570 Campus, Fort Collins, CO, 80523, USA

    Thao N. Le

  2. University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Honolulu, USA

    Deborah Goebert

  3. National Council on Crime and Delinquency, Oakland, USA

    Judy Wallen

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  1. Thao N. Le
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  2. Deborah Goebert
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  3. Judy Wallen
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Correspondence to Thao N. Le.

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 5, 6, and 7.

Table 5 Intercorrelations among manifest scales for ethnic groups
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Table 6 Intercorrelations among manifest scales for ethnic groups
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Table 7 Intercorrelations among manifest scales for gender
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Le, T.N., Goebert, D. & Wallen, J. Acculturation Factors and Substance Use Among Asian American Youth. J Primary Prevent 30, 453–473 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10935-009-0184-x

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