My research has focused on
· cultural processes in health disparities, such as the role of ethnicity, acculturation and gender identity in youth drug use and prevention interventions;
· cultural adaptation of prevention programs for ethnic minority youth;
· contextual neighborhood and school level influences on individual level risk and protective behaviors;
· gender and racial inequities in professional careers;
· the organizational sources of ethnic and gender discrimination
I work currently with an interdisciplinary team of researchers at the Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center (SIRC) who study the social and cultural determinants of health disparities among populations of the southwest, and design, implement, and evaluate culturally grounded prevention programs and services. Our keepin' it REAL (Refuse, Explain, Avoid, Leave) intervention for middle school students is a SAMSHA model program for preventing youth drug use. As Director of Research and Co-Principal Investigator at SIRC, I help direct a team of ASU faculty researchers and graduate students from Sociology, Social Work, Psychology, Justice Studies, Communications, Education and Nursing who are engaged in research on health disparities in substance use, HIV/AIDS, obesity, and mental health, addressing the distinctive cultures of the southwest borderlands region. Our projects in collaboration with the urban American Indian communities of Arizona, Phoenix elementary and middle schools, and collaborators in Monterrey, Guanajuato and Guadalajara, Mexico are focused on identifying sources of cultural resilience against drug use and sexual risk behaviors that can be employed in effective prevention and treatment programs.
In my earlier work, through several national studies of faculty in