Session: The Innovative and Strategic Prevention in Racial and Ethnic Disparities (INSPIRED) Lab Presents: Combatting Health Inequities (Society for Social Work and Research 30th Annual Conference Anniversary)

Background and Purpose: The Innovative and Strategic Prevention in Racial and Ethnic Disparities (INSPIRED) Lab, seeks to understand the mechanisms contributing to health disparities, develop interventions to reduce racial/ethnic health disparities, disseminate findings, and mentor/train the next generation of prevention scientists in racial/ethnic health disparities research. Ultimately, INSPIRED Lab strives to inspire change and achieve health equity through innovative and rigorous research, education, and community engagement. The current symposium presents findings from two INSPIRED Lab projects: the SAMHSA funded Substance Use Prevention Education and Research (SUPER) project and the Substance Use among Biracial Adolescents and Emerging Adults: The Double Jeopardy Hypothesis project, a NIDA funded R01. Presentation 1 will provide an overview of SUPER including outcome findings from the Botvin LifeSkills Training (LST) program. Presentation 2 will offer additional findings from SUPER’s LST intervention regarding risk factors associated with adolescent electronic vapor use. Presentation 3 will discuss the differences in substance use onset and trajectories between biracial and monoracial youth, using integrated data from two nationally representative longitudinal datasets. Presentation 4 will present findings from a scoping review regarding how Multi-racial identity is measured in social determinants of health (SDOH) research. Methods: SUPER was a 5-year substance use prevention initiative implemented in two Counties in North Carolina. SUPER provided the Botvin LST program, a substance use prevention intervention, to over 1,0000 middle school youth, while a comparison group of youth received a NIDA sponsored mindfulness intervention. Using integrative data analysis (IDA), the R01 project combined and analyzed data from the Monitoring the Futures (MFT) panel data and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent and Adult Health (Add Health) data. The scoping review followed PRISMA-ScR guidelines and consulted with a health sciences librarian to solidify the research strategy. Researchers searched seven databases and data extraction yielded 37 studies that used various measures and methods across 48 Multiracial subgroups and examined various health outcomes. Results: LST findings indicated that participating youth reported a 49% reduction in the odds of alcohol use at post-test compared to youth in the mindfulness group. In addition, current substance use at pre-test was a predictor of substance use at post-test. For presentation 2, findings indicated that increased parent monitoring was significantly associated with a decreased likelihood of electronic vapor use while increased delinquency and friend substance use were associated with a significant increased likelihood of electronic vapor use. Findings from the IDA study indicated that biracial youth generally face an intermediate or higher risk of substance use initiation and growth trajectories compared to their monoracial counterparts. Factors such as peer substance use influence youth differently based on age and race/ethnicity. Results of the scoping review found that studies published within the last decade have increasingly used open-ended racial/ethnic identity measures (51%, n=19). However, more research on Multiracial populations that leads to an increase in methodological approaches (i.e., mixed, multidimensional, and standardized identity measures) is crucial. Conclusions and Implications: Taken together, INSPIRED Lab has addressed racial/ethnic health disparities by conducting research with diverse populations and widely disseminating findings.