Current Projects & Findings

Current Projects

Despite the continued high rates of teen vaping, few empirically-supported treatments exist that are tailored for this demographic group and none exist for teens who identify as Hispanic/Latina(o). The primary objective of this project is to create, refine, and implement a culturally informed e-cigarette cessation intervention for high school youth via 3 aims: Aim 1: Conduct focus groups with Hispanic/Latina(o) e-cigarette users and relevant stakeholders (e.g., youth advocates) to explore feasibility and acceptability of potential treatment components; Aim 2: Design and implement a culturally-relevant, contextually-congruent, accessible, and effective intervention; and Aim 3: Pilot test the cessation intervention with Hispanic/Latina(o) e-cigarette users (Aim 3).

Smoking remains the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the US. Although rates of cigarette use are decreasing, e-cigarette use is increasing at a rapid pace, especially among Hispanic/Latina(o) youth. A focus on this population is timely and urgent as this is the largest and most rapidly growing minority group in the country. Identifying malleable factors that contribute to vaping among Hispanic/Latina(o) youth that can be leveraged to prevent disease may help avert health disparities. The ACE Project identifies factors that influence the onset of vaping among adolescents and determine whether e-cigarette use leads to greater use of other substances. The ACE Project also examines whether e-cigarette use has a negative impact on brain functioning and structure using neuroimaging. 

Recent Findings

The E-Cigarette Assessment for Youth-Revised (EAsY-R): Refinement via cognitive interviewing.

Despite the high rate of teen vaping, no measure is available to assessment quantity and frequency of vaping among this age group. The current study conducted by ReACH Lab members, Sarah Hartmann, Julie Cristello, Odette Mandela, and Elisa Trucco utilized cognitive interviews with high school and college-age youth who use vaping devices to inform the preliminary development of such a measure. The sample consisted of eight students between the ages of 15 and 24. The result of this study, the E-Cigarette Assessment for Youth Revised (EAsY-R), is a unique tool for standardizing quantity and frequency of vaping behaviors among youth. 

Mother-Child Dynamics: Examining reciprocal relations between parental knowledge, child disclosure, parental legitimacy beliefs, and adolescent alcohol use. 

A new study conducted by ReACH Lab members Nilofar Fallah-Sohy, alongside ReACH Lab Director and ACE-Project Co-PI Dr. Elisa Trucco, explored the prospective bidirectional effects between parental knowledge and child disclosure alongside youth alcohol use and perceived legitimacy of parental authority. Novel findings demonstrate that parental legitimacy beliefs predict reduced alcohol use and have a reciprocal association with child disclosure. Clinical implications to mitigate youth alcohol use initiation, by enhancing parental self-efficacy, are discussed. 

Charting a course for empowered adolescent substance use treatment