The Development and Evaluation of the Ho'ouna Pono Drug Prevention Curriculum -
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Research has indicated that Native Hawaiian youth have significantly higher rates of drug use than their non-Hawaiian counterparts (e.g., Wong, Klingle, & Price, 2004; Mayeda, Hishinuma, Nishimura, Garcia- Santiago, & Mark, 2006; Nishimura, Hishinuma, & Goebert, 2013), and that these differences are particularly pronounced in rural settings (Lai & Saka, 2005). Despite these findings, there have been very few drug prevention programs developed and evaluated specifically for these youth (Edwards, Giroux, & Okamoto, 2010; Rehuher, Hiramatsu, & Helm, 2008). Therefore, the purpose of this research proposal is to complete the development of a video-enhanced, culturally grounded, school-based drug prevention curriculum for rural Native Hawaiian youth (Ho'ouna Pono), and to evaluate the curriculum across all public middle/intermediate schools on Hawai'i Island. This will be accomplished through three specific aims. AIM 1 (Year 1) is to complete the Ho'ouna Pono drug prevention curriculum initially developed and validated in a NIDA-funded translational pilot/feasibility study (R34 DA031306). To date, five professionally filmed video vignettes depicting drug-related problem situations specific to rural Hawaiian youth and seven interactive classroom lessons have been created, implemented in randomly selected intervention schools, and preliminarily evaluated using a pre-test, post-test control group design. Aim 1 enhances and builds upon this work by producing two new video vignettes, re-editing a "Behind the Scenes" video, developing new classroom curricular components, and synthesizing the new content with the existing curriculum. AIM 2 (Years 2-3) is to evaluate the fully conceived curriculum across all
middle/intermediate schools on Hawai'i Island (N = 15) using a dynamic wait- listed control group design (Brown, Wyman, Guo, & Peña, 2006). AIM 3 (Year 4) is to assess community, systemic, and curricular factors related to the implementation, adoption, and sustainability of the
curriculum within public middle/intermediate schools on Hawaii Island.
