Innovative and Strategic Prevention in Racial and Ethnic Disparities Lab
Preventing Substance Use Among Diverse Youth
CORE TEAM
Trenette Clark Goings, Andrea Murray-Lichtman, Tauchiana Williams, Amy Levine, Daniel J. Bauer, Ai Bo, Caroline Evans, Patrece L. Joseph, Adam Mack
Formed in 2010 by Director Trenette Clark Goings, the School of Social Work’s Sandra Reeves Spears and John B. Turner Distinguished Professor, the INSPIRED Lab is driving advancements in research and interventions designed to prevent racial and ethnic health — particularly behavioral health — disparities. To this end, the lab’s interdisciplinary and multi-university research team draws together expertise in health disparities, prevention science, substance use, adolescent and emerging adult-focused research, and clinical practice.
Under Goings’ leadership, INSPIRED’s active research portfolio spans three research projects, including two federally funded projects centered on preventing substance use among racially and ethnically diverse youth across four counties in North Carolina.
One five-year project, funded by NIH and NIDA ($1.7M), is filling a glaring research and service gap for substance use prevention among biracial adolescents and young adults, a fast-growing demographic group facing higher risk of substance use than many of their monoracial peers. Combining two nationally representative datasets using integrated data analysis, the INSPIRED lab is testing what Goings calls the “Double Jeopardy Hypothesis” — that biracial youth experience both common risk factors for substance use and additional risk factors uniquely faced by biracial individuals in the U.S. — to provide the first model explaining biracial adolescents’ and young adults’ substance use patterns.
I liked how they talked about nicotine and how…[it] can get inside of your lungs…[I told my cousin about what I learned] and it allowed my cousin to stop smoking…I saved a life.
MIDDLE SCHOOL PARTICIPANT, SUPER
Funded by SAMHSA ($1.5M), INSPIRED’s second active project, Substance Use Prevention and Education and Research (SUPER), is a five-year prevention initiative spanning rural and urban counties in the state to directly prevent and reduce youth substance use.
To maximize impact, SUPER is engaging not only youth but parents and surrounding communities by combining youth and parent interventions with practitioner training opportunities and community councils. Because, as Goings noted, “Sometimes prevention starts with awareness.” That is, building awareness of youth substance use simultaneously in schools, at home, and in the community can have cumulative impact in the short term and even more in the long term.
In middle schools and youth-serving agencies across rural and urban counties in NC, licensed clinicians hired by SUPER are delivering one of two interventions — a 15-week life skills training and a one-lesson mindfulness intervention — to measure the differences each intervention produces in students’ knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors regarding substance use, and in turn identify the highest-impact program. At the same time, SUPER’s staff guided parents through a four-week group parenting program to help them build supportive, trusting relationships with their children. The staff also connected parents with practitioners in multiple counties to offer in-house clinical trainings in substance use prevention, enabling them to better understand, identify, and respond to youth substance use.
By directly preventing youth substance use and strengthening communities’ ability to prevent it, SUPER has produced a wellspring of fresh evidence and positive community impact. Initial feedback from a subset of nearly 500 youth participants indicates that they positively responded to the life skills training, feedback echoed by school personnel. Goings’ team also found that parent participants not only reported more parenting competence, but also improved mental health, which may also improve parent-child relationships — another factor shown to prevent substance use.
SUPER’s youth intervention has been implemented in 10 schools and youth-serving programs so far, and its outreach to another 30 schools and agencies has amplified its engagement, reaching approximately 10,000 youth in NC. SUPER plans to implement the youth intervention with an additional 400 to 500 youth across NC in the next two years and establish community coalitions to ensure its programs endure. Goings expects far-reaching effects. “If we can prevent youth substance use, and I believe we can,” she said, “We can prevent other risky health behaviors and move closer toward health equity.”
by Jordan Wingate
The Big Picture
- Consists of antiracist researchers and practitioners using innovative strategies and science to prevent health disparities
- Currently has $3.3 million in federal funding, including almost $2 million from the National Institutes of Health
- Consistently funded since its inception
Advancing equity. Transforming systems. Improving lives.
UNC School of Social Work
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Tate-Turner-Kuralt Building
325 Pittsboro Street | Campus Box 3550
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3550