An example of a community organization that resides in South Los Angeles and propounds development of universal services for marginalized residents impacted by substance misuse is South Central Prevention Coalition. SCPC fosters educational development and primary prevention strategies to inform youth/ marginalized adults on the risks and dangers related to substance misuse as well as encourage individuals to be cognizant of educational programming which can provide them resources for scouting out and advocating for recovery/prevention programs in their area of residence. Community-engaged research tools devised would align with South Prevention Coalition Prevention partnership efforts to decrease marijuana use among youth, decreasing meth use among youth and adults, and decreasing drug misuse among youth/adults by reducing unlawful and lawful access to opioid drugs. Types of community-engagement tools cultivated to address the research inquiry as described above would be developing educational curricula on marijuana/opioid misuse awareness for faith-based organizations as well as low-income communities housing middle schools, gleaning a focus group cohort who will relay their experiences with their community’s current state of substance mis-use programming/whether they know of adverse community indicators that contribute to the patterns of drug-misuse behavior that they observe, and creating program evaluations for a Drug Take Back event in efforts to understand the African American/Latinx current perceptions of substance mis-use as well as promote means to safely dispose prescription drugs to further educate public about substance mis-use. Qualitative data within this research approach aligning with this research inquiry is collected by learning from the faith-based African American and Latinx participants sampled from the focus group,hydroponic trays rather than imposing the researcher’s standpoint onto participants through questionnaires and interview sessions.
While, quantitative data is collected from the advancement of the research question stated above through development of surveys and post-event evaluations measuring participant agreement with written statements regarding their current experiences with substance mis-use prevention programs. The topic of exploration that is situated in this proposal is investigating how marginalized communities of color, specifically African American and Latinx communities are more susceptible to drug misuse which can be attributed to maladaptive community indicators such as implicit bias, “drug-misuse labeling,” as well as lack of community programming/tools cultivated to bring awareness to drug mis-use/spur advocacy towards substance mis-use prevention endeavors. A community engaged research approach alongside SCPC’s collaboration will be utilized to address the inquiry of whether program evaluation, and focus group interviews can unravel current community organizational awareness of substance misuse disorders as well as whether educational curricula development can curb the progression of unstable community indicators that lead to elevated substance mis-use. Specific community engagement research strategies that align with SCPC’s methodological approaches of primary prevention strategies and collaborative learning strategies, include the development of substance mis-use educational curricula, focus group interviews involving faith-based community members that presentations were delivered to, and program evaluation surveys administered after the completion of Drug Take Back day. The importance of this work resiles in that contributing factors to substance mis-use disorders affecting adolescents and adults of color will be clarified as well as the relationship between faltering community stability indicators and substance mis-use disorders will be substantiated through qualitative data collection.The focus of this community engagement research project was to investigate the contribution of community indicators and risk factors on marginalized youth’s development of marijuana misuse.
Additionally, the sub-focus of this project was to measure the effectiveness of organized community indicators such as marijuana mis-use prevention program creation, perceptions of implicit bias permeated by hegemonic power structures, and educational resources as well as its propensity to mitigate instances of marijuana mis-use. These focuses were investigated through a community engagement research approach in which I devised and presented substance mis-use educational curricula for faith based communities as well as high schools in low-income areas within SPA-6. Upon presentation of these materials, a focus group interview qualitative data tool was utilized to record participant positive or negative perceptions of healthcare disparity educational material and programming disseminated by their community. Post presentation surveys were created for participants to evaluate presentation effectiveness in addressing current substance mis-use substances, advocacy for substance mis-use prevention, as well as whether these resources should be implemented in their community to actively resist substance mis-use. In alignment with SCPC SLAM Coalition, I participated in Drug Take Back Day by creating post event surveys which measured participant perceptions on the effectiveness of Drug Take Back Day in disseminating safe prescription disposal practices as well as promoting substance mis-use treatment resources.Program evaluations are defined as a form of documentation and assessment of program implementation. In the form of google form survey, I utilized SCPC’s post Drug Take Back Day program evaluation which prompted me to develop questions about participant viewpoints on program milestones and to analyze participant responses with a logical model framework in a report. The logical model framework reflected on relationship building between implementation of the program and desired outcome, but SCPC’s program evaluation design evaluated the desired program outcomes through the collection of participant views on the effectiveness of the program in disseminating awareness for substance mis-use. Participants who attended this Drug Take Back day event were given a choice to complete these program evaluations in the form of surveys.
Simplified question language encompassed rhetoric familiar to all age level participants and biased language was not applied to the survey questions. To retain authenticity of participant answers, falsifying or fabricating participant answers was prohibited. Factors that may jeopardize validity and generalizability were considered. As survey questions were devised in the form of a post event survey,mobile grow system privacy and confidentiality of participant responses will be enforced. Qualitative data in the form of focus group interviews and program evaluation was measured using self-reported health status which allowed participants to provide their own perceptions of a health condition. However, the data that I collected will further utilize the SRHS framework in that participants will be asked to self-report their perceptions on the effectiveness of programming for Drug Take Back day, describe the effectiveness of substance mis-use education programming that they were exposed to, as well as their current views on substance mis-use affecting them as a marginalized person of color. Program evaluation data analysis was conducted through describing and summarizing Drug Take Back Day attendee responses. These descriptions were written in the style of an evaluation report which includes a summary of findings. Upon completion of the focus group interview, responses were compiled and transcribed utilizing qualitative data coding. In alignment with Charmaz’s framework into qualitative data coding, the following initial questions were considered: “What is going on? What is this person saying?” Subsequently, analysis was performed to “produce a detailed and systematic recording of themes” as well as socioeconomic indicators that were touched upon during the focus group interview. Connecting with this analytical framework, an “exhaustive category system” was created to ascertain common themes and viewpoints during the interview. General themes within the transcripts that coalesce with Burnard’s Stage Two analysis and that were gleaned from open coding practices included reactions when comprehending marijuana mis-use statistics amongst youth knowing that the pattern of alcohol outlet development is translatable to marijuana outlet development, discussions on marijuana mis-use due to unstable community indicators, unanimous agreement on the absence of marijuana mis-use prevention educational measures, as well as common realizations that marijuana mis-use education is missing from youth concentrated communities in South Central LA. The term mis-use was defined by participants as frequent and over-use of marijuana due to the increased presence of marijuana outlets. Upon performing data analysis as mentioned above, the major themes extricated were general reactions on marijuana mis-use presentation materials, marijuana mis-use due to unstable community indicators, perceptions on current marijuana mis-use prevention educational measures, marijuana promotion, and lacking education on this issue which can be mitigated by community development tools which can steer users to marijuana mis-use recovery. Subheadings for each theme included the following respectively: shocked and not shocked reactions upon reacting to marijuana outlet concentrations, increased accessibility to marijuana due to marijuana outlet increase, participants have never heard of recovery programs through education/visuals, commercialization of marijuana, as well as ideas for community programming development towards elementary/middle school students.
Utilizing interview transcript analysis and open coding principles, it was found that four individuals elicited a shocking reaction through their reflections when visualizing higher marijuana mis-use rates amongst high school individuals, while the remaining 4 individuals elicited an unsurprised reaction through their reflections on the overly concentration distributions of marijuana outlets. Additionally, all 8 individuals deduced the contributing causes of marijuana mis-use to be attributed to the increase in dispensaries in urban areas and high schools as well as increased marijuana accessibility due to legalization of marijuana. All of the participants in this focus group interview stated that they have not heard of or seen visual marijuana mis-use prevention posters within their respective communities which posed as unnerving concern to them. Four out of eight participants stated that they had/have lived in a community where there is/was an abundance of marijuana outlets, including Crenshaw, Melrose, and the Redlands. Participants also agreed that the commercialization of marijuana accounted for youth of color as well as adults of color to go into dispensaries. Lastly, all eight participants proposed that restoring education that is lacking in their communities would be key to reducing prevalence of marijuana mis-use rates alongside steering mis-users to seek out recovery programs. These findings that were extricated, substantiated the topic of focus: a discussion surrounding the prevalence of marijuana mis-use amongst youth and adults of color in South Central LA due to lacking community educational interventions as well as whether the implementation of organized community indicators such as marijuana mis-use prevention program creation within their community/increased educational resources has the potential to curb instances of marijuana mis-use amongst high schoolers. After participants were asked to listen to the marijuana mis-use presentation prior to the conduct of the focus group interview, they were asked to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of the presentation as well as the effectiveness of this resource as a proxy for audiences to unpack the contributing causes of elevated marijuana mis-use disorder rates. As responses were transcribed for a question concerning their reflections on the presentation material and comprehensibility, a major theme emerged which was that participants felt mixed emotions when internalizing the statistical content of the marijuana mis-use presentation. In devising this theme, an open coding process was applied in this following sequence, aligning with Burnard’s method of interview transcript analysis. Burnard’s first 10 stages of analysis were prompted during the open coding process of this theme. After Stage 2 of Burnard’s analysis was applied in determination of this theme, transcripts were thoroughly re-read and transcriptions that aligned with the theme were further placed into a table. In deciphering this theme, the open coding process involved delving into the participant’s words to unravel common sentiments that they stated regarding marijuana mis-use presentation content as well as platforming these sentiments as a “freely generated category.” Continuing Burnard’s stages up until Stage 10, it was imperative that I utilized the “dross” process to cut down “unnecessary fillers” as well as retain the main subject matter of participant statistical perceptions upon registering the impact of the presentation. As more data was added to this theme, I created the subheadings of “Participants were shocked seeing these statistics reflect the youth accessibility of marijuana and subsequent mis-use” and “participants were not shocked seeing these statistics reflect the youth accessibility of marijuana and subsequent mis-use” to fit both the surprising and not surprising sentiments that were stated by the participants. As stated by 29 year old participant Janice, “So the numbers in the stats were pretty shocking to me, especially for the age of the eighth graders.” Another participant named Monica stated “I see the effects of the increased marijuana use some, especially among young people. And I’ve seen how marijuana has changed over the years. So what is going on with it now, kind of alarmed me.” These interview quotes serve as evidence that participants elicited shocked or alarmed reactions to the presentation statistics which highlighted the emerging prevalence of marjuana mis-use amongst 7th and 8th graders. On the other hand, a participant named Rhoda stated that “Unfortunately, the statistics, it’s not surprising, but it’s very sad.” Along similar lines, a participant named Arthur seconded that “I wasn’t surprised when I looked at the statistics.” Another participant named Soriyah stated that “I’m not surprised by the statistics.” These responses corroborate the development sub-heading in that participants elicited sentiments of not being startled by the presence of alarming statistics as they realized that deficits in educational programming tailored to the youth and dispensary production increases underlie the creation of these statistics. These shocking and non-shocking sentiments were important to note because it demonstrated how educational content within the presentation allowed them to grasp salient statistics as well as all of the participants to comment on the context behind these statistics.