PROJECT SUMMARY
Data consistently demonstrate alarming racial disparities among youth and adults impacted by the legal
system, and multiple studies have documented that justice-impacted youth have substantially higher rates of
psychiatric needs, substance use and HIV/STI risk behaviors than youth who have not had juvenile legal
system contact. However, research elucidating the impact of structural, cultural and individual racism on the
health and legal outcomes and disparities of justice-impacted ethnoracial minoritized youth and families is
nascent. This study will advance the science in structural racism and discrimination (SRD) and its influence on
public health and legal inequities by leveraging an existing statewide longitudinal dataset from Project EPICC
as well as following up with 300 previously enrolled youth and caregivers (N=300 dyads or 600 participants
total) to conduct once annual follow-up assessments and life course interviews. Informed by Ecodevelopmental
Theory, Project EPICC followed 401 youth and an involved caregiver (55% ethnoracial minoritized youth) for
two years starting from the time of first ever youth contact with the juvenile legal system. Data are available on
the longitudinal trajectories of substance use, psychiatric symptoms, HIV/STI risk behaviors and recidivism and
the multiple contributing risk and protective influences (individual, family and extrafamilial) on youth
trajectories. Project EPICC-2 will expand the Ecodevelopmental Framework to study the longitudinal impact of
structural racism and discrimination on trajectories of ethnoracial minoritized youth’s substance use,
psychiatric, sexual and reproductive health and legal outcomes during adolescence and into young adulthood.
Using statewide administrative data, we will expand original primary outcomes to include substance use and
psychiatric services utilization to understanding more about direct influence of structural racism and
discrimination on justice-impacted young adult healthcare services access and equity. Annual life course
interviews with a stratified random subsample of 50 young adults and 50 caregivers will provide a more
nuanced qualitative and contextual understanding of the impact of structural racism on adolescent, young adult
and family experiences and trajectories. EPICC-2 will leverage an existing longitudinal dataset, pre-existing
relationships with a large sample of justice-impacted families, an ecodevelopmental and intersectional (race,
ethnicity, sex, gender, socioeconomic status) framework, an intergenerational approach and an accomplished
multidisciplinary study team to answer critically important questions in the field of adolescent and young adult
health disparities.
