Examining Africentric Cultural Values, Ethnic Identity, and Substance Use Abstinence in Low-Income, Early Adolescent, African American Girls.

An examination of cultural protective factors that foster substance use abstinence among low-income, early adolescent, African American girls may be helpful in understanding how to promote resilience and reduce negative health outcomes. This study examined the relations between Africentric cultural values, ethnic identity, and substance use abstinence among 196 low-income African American early adolescent girls (age 11-14 years). Results of logistic regressions revealed that Africentric values were negatively linked to cigarette and alcohol abstinence.

Advancing the Africentric paradigm shift discourse: building toward evidence-based Africentric interventions in social work practice with African Americans.

For over a decade, a number of social work scholars have advocated for an Africentric paradigm shift in social work practice with African Americans; yet the paradigm shift has been slow in coming with respect to infusing Africentric theory and interventions into social work practice, education, and research. Interventions that infuse Africentric values (such as interdependence, collectivism, transformation, and spirituality) have been shown to create significant change across a number of areas important to social work practice with African Americans. However, a barrier to the full integration of Africentric models into social work practice is that Africentric programs lack cohesive documentation and replication and, thus, have limited potential to be established as evidence-based practices.