Venue: The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, 1 Towerview Drive, Durham, NC 27708-0120

 

Presentation

Health Disparities in Substance Abuse Prevention for African-American and White Youth

Authors: William S Cartwright (George Mason University); Panagiota Kitsantas (George Mason University); Steven R. Rose (George Mason University)

Presenter: William S. Cartwright (George Mason University)

Discussant: Sukyung Chung (University of California, San Francisco)

Session: Socioeconomic Inequality

Room: Seminar C

When: Wednesday 10:30 a.m. - noon

A demographic-economic model is used to estimate the impact of evidenced-based prevention programs on drug abuse and public health goals as they are promulgated in Healthy People 2010. Over the past decade, prevention interventions designed to target youth at risk could have many beneficial effects on drug problems if they were ramped-up with more extensive financing. In this study, a portfolio of evidenced-based prevention programs for public and private financing has been put together to examine improvements in health disparities and specifically, those related to drug use in African-American adolescents and young adults. Data indicate that drug use accelerates in the age group of 14-15 years old and peaks for those between the ages of 18-20, and then begins to decline until age 30. African-American youth aged 12 to 17 have been found to use illicit drugs at a rate of 14 percent and Whites, 16.9 percent, but African-American youth drug offenses are 51 percent higher than comparable white youth offenses. Significant economic costs are generated by the disproportionate outcomes experienced by African-American adolescents and young adults as a result of illicit drug use. It is in this demographic group that prevention programs may impact health and net social costs as adolescents undergo the transition to young adulthood.