Pubdate: Thu, 17 Feb 2000
Source: South Bend Tribune (IN)
Copyright: 2000 South Bend Tribune
Contact:  219-236-1765
Website: http://www.sbtinfo.com/
Author: Rick Martinez

ANDREWS SECURES GRANT FOR STUDY OF TEEN DRUG USE

(BERRIEN SPRINGS) -- Andrews University has received a $978,000 grant to
study illegal drug use by teen-agers as part of a partnership looking
at ways to reduce youth substance abuse, university officials
announced Wednesday.

Andrews is joining in a five-year, $13.6 million national study
administered by the University of Illinois at Chicago Health Research
and Policy Centers already under way. The study is being done through
ImpacTeen, a partnership seeking to reduce youth substance abuse and
funded by the New Jersey-based Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

"Illegal drug abuse is ... a complex situation. Because (such) drugs
are illegal, you can't get a good amount of accurate data" on the
problem, said Curtis VanDerWaal, associate professor of social work at
Andrews.

"What we want to do is look at how (different factors) influence drug
use for teens," he said Wednesday night.

The factors that researchers from Andrews and others are looking at
include existing laws, peer pressure, accident and hospital reports,
crime statistics, health records, the media's influence, illegal
drugs' availability and other research done to date.

The team of researchers on the three-year project is being headed by
Andrews' Duane McBride, chairman of the behavioral sciences
department, and VanDerWaal. They are being joined by Andrews graduate
students Rosalie Liccard Pacula, an associate economist at the Santa
Monica, Calif.-based RAND Corp.; and Jaime Chriqui, project manager
for the Washington, D.C.-based MayaTech Corp.

The Andrews-led researchers are following up on two years of work
already done by the University of Delaware Center for Drug and Alcohol
Studies.

What they are "working to determine (are) what works and doesn't work
to reduce adolescent drug use and its consequences," said McBride, who
is also chairman of the Berrien County Health Board.

McBride was in Newark, Del., on Wednesday securing University of
Delaware research to further the ongoing study, VanDerWaal said.

ImpacTeen is seeking to identify and track drug-control policies in
all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It is doing that to help
evaluate effectiveness in reducing mortality, morbidity and
psychological and social problems relating to substance use and abuse
by teen-agers.

The ImpacTeen researchers also include the University of Minnesota's
School of Public Health on alcohol-related topics and the Buffalo,
N.Y.-based Roswell Park Cancer Institute on tobacco-related topics. A
member of UIC's seven-person administrative staff for ImpacTeen is
Yvonne Terry, a visiting research specialist who last year received a
master's degree from the University of Notre Dame.

Andrews officials said their grant for their portion of the ImpacTeen
study is the largest single research contract in the Seventh-day
Adventist Church-affiliated university's history. To win the award,
Andrews beat out bids from the University of Delaware, RAND Corp.,
Massachusetts-based Brandeis University and the New York-based
National Development & Research Institutes.

VanDerWaal credits Andrews' ability to compete for such a study on
technology allowing researchers to study existing databases and
research more easily via online and other access.

"That's one of the reasons that small schools like Andrews can start
being on a competitive level now," he said.

ImpacTeen is trying to find ways to fight substance use and abuse by
teen-agers, director Frank Chaloupka said.

"We're trying to figure out what's behind the increases we've seen in
youth substance use during most of the '90s," he said in a statement.
"Given that substance abuse starts early, if we can find ways to
prevent kids from starting, we can have long-lasting health and social
benefits." 
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