Be a better researcher when studying drug abuse among minorities! Conducting Drug Abuse Research with Minority Populations: Advances and Issues brings you the voices of drug abuse researchers who discuss the most important concerns about conducting research in drug-taking minority populations. In this strategy-based book, you’ll find yourself beneficially involved in a discussion of many of the central methodological advances facing researchers today, specifically in the target area of minority communities and their drug-using societies. Conducting Drug Abuse Research with Minority Populations presents crucial recommendations and strategies that will lead you toward unprecedented effectiveness and efficiency when researching this subsection of the world’s drug users. In addition, find new ways to involve community members in the research process, and you’ll come to more fully understand the impact of cultural values, attitudes, and norms in the drug-taking patterns of minority persons. With this book, you will learn more about: the importance of advisory boards, gatekeepers, and indigenous workers in this type of research the crucial role of incentives in recruiting and retaining minority persons in drug abuse studies focus groups as tools to minimize selection bias of minority subjects how cultural values may affect research strategies how research teams can facilitate the collection of data within minority communities Researchers, college educators, and substance abuse practitioners will find that Conducting Drug Abuse Research with Minority Populations improves their efforts to produce more viable data in a much shorter time span.

Provides an understanding of the nature of drug use among minorities by summarizing data on this issue. The data came from several large and small-scale epidemiological studies that collect and analyze data on the incidence, prevalence, morbidity, mortality, and other adverse health consequences of drug use among racial/ethnic populations. Chapters: definition of race and ethnicity; overview of drug use and drug related problems; population statistics for racial/ethnic minorities in the U.S.; drug use in the general population; prevalence of drug use among youth; youth drug use and risky behaviors; and adverse health consequences; drugs and crime.