Efficacy of a Digital Health Preventive Intervention for Adolescents With HIV or Sexually Transmitted Infections and Substance Use Disorder: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: HIV or sexually transmitted infections remain a significant public health concern in the United States, with adolescents affected disproportionately. Adolescents engage in HIV/STI risk behaviors, including drug use and condomless sex, which increase the risk for HIV/STIs. At-risk adolescents, many of whom are racial minorities, experience HIV/STI disparities.

Hispanic adolescents' internalizing symptoms and positive family functioning: A bidirectional examination of associations over time.

Open communication with parents, defined as perceived ease of adolescent-parent disclosure, and family support are components of positive family functioning linked with fewer adolescent internalizing symptoms. However, relatively little is known about bidirectional pathways over time. Even less is known about bidirectional pathways for Hispanic adolescents or about the role of adolescent and parent gender.

A legal dispute resolution intervention for patients with substance use disorders: a study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Substance use disorders (SUDs) represent major public health concerns and are linked to enhanced risk of legal consequences. Unresolved legal issues may prevent individuals with SUD from completing treatment. Interventions aimed at improving SUD treatment outcomes are limited.

Ethnic discrimination, acculturative stress, and sexual risk among Latinx emerging adults: Examining moderation effects of familism support and ethnic identity.

Objectives: Ethnic discrimination and acculturative stress play an important role in sexual risk behaviors for Latinx emerging adults, who are at disproportionate risk for sexually transmitted infections. Factors such as familism support and ethnic identity may be protective, yet research is limited. This study is guided by a culturally adapted stress and coping framework to examine associations of ethnic discrimination and acculturative stress with sexual risk behaviors (i.

A Community-Academic Approach to Preventing Substance Use Disorders.

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic and activism against structural racism heightened awareness of racial-ethnic disparities and disproportionate burden among the underserved. The opioid crisis further compounds these phenomena, increasing vulnerability for substance use disorders (SUD). Community-based participatory research can facilitate multidisciplinary collaboration, yet literature on these approaches to prevent and reduce SUD and associated stigma remains limited.

Pilot Study of a Multilevel Mobile Health App for Substance Use, Sexual Risk Behaviors, and Testing for Sexually Transmitted Infections and HIV Among Youth: Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Preventing and reducing substance use disorders, sexually transmitted infections (STIs)/HIV, and teen pregnancy, and the associated risk behaviors (ie, substance use and sexual risk behaviors) among youth remain public health priorities in the United States. Equally important is improving the uptake of STI/HIV testing among the youth. Mobile health (mHealth) apps may be a solution to ameliorate these public health concerns; however, few mHealth preventive interventions have demonstrated efficacy in reducing substance use or sexual risk behaviors or improving the uptake of STI/HIV testing among the youth, particularly in clinic settings.

Disentangling relationships between bicultural stress and mental well-being among Latinx immigrant adolescents.

Background: The Acculturative Process and Context Framework (Ward & Geeraert, 2016) proposes that acculturative stressors influence psychological well-being over time. In fact, extant literature has linked bicultural stress with psychological functioning; yet, no studies have explored the causal dominance of bicultural stress. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the directionality of prospective relations among bicultural stress and psychosocial functioning (i.

Development of the Brief Social Capital for Youth Sexual and Reproductive Health Scale: Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis.

Social capital plays an important role in sexual and reproductive health among youth, yet few measures to assess this concept have been developed and tested for this population. We developed and examined the factor structure of the Brief Social Capital for Youth Sexual and Reproductive Health Scale. Drawing on the empirical literature, we identified item content to assess an overall construct of social capital in relationship to youth's sexual and reproductive health, including condom self-efficacy, civic engagement, and adult and community support.

A multilevel mHealth drug abuse and STI/HIV preventive intervention for clinic settings in the United States: A feasibility and acceptability study.

Background: Drug abuse and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), remain significant public health concerns in the United States. Youth are at disproportionate risk of drug use and STIs/HIV, yet interventions aimed at improving STI and HIV testing and reducing STI/HIV risk behaviors through technology-based engagement in clinic settings are limited. The purpose of this study was to examine the feasibility and acceptability of Storytelling 4 Empowerment (S4E), a multilevel mobile-health drug abuse and STI/HIV preventive application (app) for clinic settings.

Who counts as family? Family typologies, family support, and family undermining among young adult gay and bisexual men.

Gay and bisexual men may form chosen families in addition to or in place of families of origin. However, the characteristics of these diverse families remain largely unexamined in the quantitative literature. The purpose of this study was to develop a family typology based on responses from a racially and ethnically diverse sample of young adult gay and bisexual men (YGBM) recruited from the Detroit Metropolitan Area (N=350; 18-29 years old).

Examining the temporal order of ethnic identity and perceived discrimination among Hispanic immigrant adolescents.

Ethnic identity formation is a central developmental task that can become challenging when adolescents face a salient stressor, such as ethnic discrimination. Although ethnic identity and experiences with ethnic discrimination are thought to be associated, the temporal order of these constructs is unclear. In the current study, we examined (a) the rejection-identification model and (b) the identification-attribution model in a longitudinal, cross-lagged model among 302 Hispanic immigrant adolescents (Mage = 14.

Are trajectories of a syndemic index in adolescence linked to HIV vulnerability in emerging and young adulthood?

Objectives: To examine trajectories of adolescent psychosocial risk - drug use, depressive and anxiety symptoms, and violence victimization and observation - and the longitudinal relationship between psychosocial risk trajectories during adolescence and HIV risk behaviors in adulthood.

Methods: The 18-year longitudinal study was conducted from September 1994 through May 2013, in Michigan. Eight hundred and fifty predominantly (80%) African-American adolescents completed demographics and measures of drug use, depressive and anxiety symptoms, violence victimization and observation at Times 1-4, sexual risk behaviors at Times 5 and 6, and social conditions (i.

Randomized Controlled Trials of Technology-Based HIV/STI and Drug Abuse Preventive Interventions for African American and Hispanic Youth: Systematic Review.

Background: HIV/sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and drug abuse remain significant public health concerns in the United States, and African American and Hispanic youth are disproportionately affected. Although technology-based interventions are efficacious in preventing and reducing HIV/STI and licit/illicit drug use behaviors, relatively little is known regarding the state of the science of these interventions among African American and Hispanic youth.

Objective: The aim of this review is to identify and examine randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of technology-based HIV/STI and/or drug abuse preventive interventions for African American and Hispanic youth.

Substance use disorders among immigrants in the United States: A research update.

Introduction: There is a critical need for the most current information available on the prevalence of substance use disorders (SUD) among immigrants vis-à-vis that of individuals born in the United States (US). We report the prevalence of SUDs among immigrants from major world regions and top immigrant-sending countries, and assess key moderators (i.e.

Longitudinal Trajectories of Family Functioning Among Recent Immigrant Adolescents and Parents: Links With Adolescent and Parent Cultural Stress, Emotional Well-Being, and Behavioral Health.

This study examined longitudinal effects of adolescent and parent cultural stress on adolescent and parent emotional well-being and health behaviors via trajectories of adolescent and parent family functioning. Recent immigrant Latino adolescents (M  = 14.51) and parents (M  = 41.

Adolescent Experiences of Clinician-Patient HIV/STI Communication in Primary Care.

Effective clinician-patient communication is linked to positive patient health outcomes in adults, yet the research on adolescent populations remains limited. We describe adolescent experiences of clinician-patient HIV/STI communication through qualitative interviews with predominantly African-American adolescent women from a youth-centered primary care clinic. Participants described acknowledging clinicians are professionals, the importance of confidentiality to foster clinician-adolescent communication, and calling for clinician-initiated HIV/STI communication.

Trends in Fighting and Violence Among Adolescents in the United States, 2002-2014.

Objectives: To examine trends in and correlates of fighting and violence among youths from the 3 largest racial/ethnic groups in the United States.

Methods: We derived race/ethnicity-specific prevalence estimates for fighting, group fighting, and attacks with intent to harm from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, a population-based study of youths aged 12 to 17 years.

Results: The prevalence of youth fighting and violence decreased significantly in all racial/ethnic groups over the study period (2002-2014), dropping from a high of 33.

Extremozymes: A Potential Source for Industrial Applications.

Extremophilic microorganisms have established a diversity of molecular strategies in order to survive in extreme conditions. Biocatalysts isolated by these organisms are termed extremozymes, and possess extraordinary properties of salt allowance, thermostability, and cold adaptivity. Extremozymes are very resistant to extreme conditions owing to their great solidity, and they pose new opportunities for biocatalysis and biotransformations, as well as for the development of the economy and new line of research, through their application.

Personal Identity Development in Hispanic Immigrant Adolescents: Links with Positive Psychosocial Functioning, Depressive Symptoms, and Externalizing Problems.

The present study was designed to examine trajectories of personal identity coherence and confusion among Hispanic recent-immigrant adolescents, as well as the effects of these trajectories on psychosocial and risk-taking outcomes. Personal identity is extremely important in anchoring young immigrants during a time of acute cultural change. A sample of 302 recently immigrated (5 years or less in the United States at baseline) Hispanic adolescents (M = 14.

Testing the Parent-Adolescent Acculturation Discrepancy Hypothesis: A Five-Wave Longitudinal Study.

This 2½-year, 5-wave longitudinal study tests the hypothesis that acculturation discrepancies between Hispanic immigrant parents and adolescents would lead to compromised family functioning, which would then lead to problematic adolescent outcomes. Recent-immigrant Hispanic parent-adolescent dyads ( = 302) completed measures of acculturation and family functioning. Adolescents completed measures of positive youth development, depressive symptoms, problem behavior, and substance use.