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This study examined snuff and chewing tobacco use among Alaska Native and American Indian adolescents. Results show frequent and early use of smokeless tobacco products. Almost one fifth of all females and close to one half of all males had used snuff or chewing tobacco on more than 20 occasions. Weekly smokeless tobacco use was reported by 34% of all females and by 42.6% of all males. By product type, 32.6% of all subjects had used snuff and 27.8% had chewed tobacco in the past week. Among females, over one half of all subjects had used snuff or chewing tobacco before age 10 years. Among males, nearly one half of the subjects first used smokeless tobacco prior to 8 years of age. Few subjects had used cigarettes or other smoked tobacco products.Smokeless tobacco use by young Americans is drawing increased attention (Chassin et al., 1985; Christen, 1985; Edmundson et al., in press; Glover, O'Brien, and Holbert, in press). Among those at highest risk for early and frequent smokeless tobacco use are Native American youth (Schinke et al., 1986). Though Alaska Native and American Indian people enjoy the lowest smoking rates of any U.S. ethnic-racial group, smokeless tobacco use by Native adolescents may antecede health problems and later cigarette use (Beauvais, Oetting, and Edwards, in press). In 1986 we studied the prevalence, onset, and relationship to smoking of snuff and chewing tobacco use among a sample of Alaska Native and American Indian youth.

Skills enhancement programs to prevent drug abuse have shown promise in tests with majority-culture adolescents. To date few applications of this preventive strategy have been evaluated with American Indian youth. A culturally tailored 10-session skills enhancement program was delivered in reservation and nonreservation settings in the Pacific Northwest. At 6-month follow-up, compared with test-only control condition subjects, intervention condition subjects had better knowledge of drug effects, better interpersonal skills for managing pressures to use drugs, and lower rates of alcohol, marijuana, and inhalant use. Intervention condition subjects were also less likely to label or consider themselves users of these substances. The findings suggest that behavioral skills training approaches hold promise for reducing substance use and abuse among American Indians.

Hispanic adolescents are the fastest growing ethnic-minority age group in America. They are also at high risk for drug, alcohol, and tobacco use. In this paper, the authors discuss the etiology of Hispanic adolescents' substance abuse, as explained in part by psychological stress. Based on the authors' research and on other data, a model for preventing substance abuse among Hispanic youths is presented. The model draws from coping, acculturation, social learning, and informal network theories. Concluding with a research agenda, the paper calls for descriptive, correlative, and intervention outcome studies to scientifically understand and prevent substance use among Hispanic adolescents.

Heterosexual contact with drug users is a major route of AIDS transmission. This study of 135 male and 109 female methadone maintenance patients described subjects' sexual behavior, preventive practices and attitudes toward safer sex; explored ethnic-racial differences in high risk sexual behavior and attitudes; and examined the relationship between attitudes toward safer sex and frequency of condom use for men and women. Reported condom use was low, and it correlated with attitudes toward safer sex. Men tended to report higher rates of sexual risk-taking, although women reported more frequent sex with IV drug users. Study findings have implications for developing intervention strategies to reduce risk behavior associated with HIV transmission.

This article reviews psychosocial correlates of adolescent substance use by focusing on the recent empirical literature. Using a tabular format, an attempt is made to provide a facile tool for referencing the literature. Examination of the literature reveals considerable diversity among explanations regarding the variance explained by many of the correlates studied. While the field strives toward a consistent theoretical base from which effective interventions may be developed, researchers must specify the nature of their study populations, designs, methodological approaches, and any issues of generalizability. Only in this way will inconsistencies in study findings be reconciled and progress toward culturally specific intervention techniques be furthered.