Assessing alcohol and other drug prevention needs among Indigenous youth ages 13-17: Developing a culturally grounded Indigenous youth harm reduction intervention.

Perceptions of alcohol and other drug (AOD) use, harm reduction, and culture were examined among 10 U.S. Indigenous youth 13-17 years of age. Key findings were contextualized within the four constructs of Indigenous relationality: (a) youth understand the harms of AOD use (people); (b) youth appreciate non-abstinence-based education (ideas); (c) youth need safe spaces to talk about the impacts of AOD use (place); and (d) youth desire to help prevent AOD harms for themselves and others (cosmos). Findings from this community-based participatory study serve as the theoretical foundation to support the development of an Indigenous youth harm reduction intervention to prevent AOD use and related harms among urban Indigenous youth in the Pacific Northwest.

Indigenous Perspectives for Strengthening Social Responses to Global Environmental Changes: A Response to the Social Work Grand Challenge on Environmental Change.

The "Grand Challenges for Social Work," is a call to action for innovative responses to society's most pressing social problems. In this article, we respond to the "Grand Challenge" of Creating Social Responses to a Changing Environment from our perspective as Indigenous scholars. Over the last several decades, diminishing natural resources, pollution, over-consumption, and the exploitation of the natural environment have led to climate change events that disproportionately affect Indigenous peoples. We present how environmental changes impact Indigenous peoples and suggest culturally relevant responses for working with Indigenous communities. We propose a decolonizing cyclical, iterative process grounded in Indigenous Ways of Knowing.

Trauma, Post-Migration Stress, and Mental Health: A Comparative Analysis of Refugees and Immigrants in the United States.

Numerous studies describe mental health effects of pre-migration trauma and post-resettlement stress among refugees, yet less research examines these associations with non-refugee immigrants. Additionally, few studies assess the prevalence and impact of traumatic experiences after settlement in a new country. Using a U.S.-based representative sample of Asian (n = 1637) and Latino (n = 1620) refugees and immigrants, we investigated how traumatic events prior to and after migration, and post-migration stressors, are associated with mental illness and distress. Pre-migration trauma posed risk across a broad range of psychological outcomes for Asian refugees and Latino immigrants. Deleterious effects of post-migration trauma were notable for both groups of refugees and immigrants. Discrimination, acculturative stress, and family conflict increased risk for disorder and distress across groups in complex ways. Findings highlight the importance of examining trauma and stress at pre- and post-migration phases across migrant populations, including those not labeled as refugees.

Reframing diabetes in American Indian communities: a social determinants of health perspective.

American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/ANs) experience some of the greatest health inequities of any group within the United States. AI/ANs are diagnosed with diabetes more than twice as often as non-Hispanic white Americans. Diabetes is a chronic preventable disease often associated with individual risk factors and behaviors that indicate what interventions are needed to prevent or manage the disease. Individual ameliorative strategies in diabetes prevention and management do not fully address the fundamental causes and complexity of diabetes in American Indian communities. Through the application of a social determinants of health paradigm, social work has the opportunity to reframe diabetes and begin to understand it as a product of and a response to unjust conditions and environments, rather than as a disease rooted solely in individual pathology and responsibility.