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Suicide and Substance Use Disorder Prevention for Rural American Indian and Alaska Native Youth

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Book cover Rural Ethnic Minority Youth and Families in the United States

Abstract

Rural American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) community efforts addressing youth suicide and substance use disorders (SUD) represent some of the most innovative recent work in the field of prevention science. Epidemiological data identify AIAN youth suicide and SUD as a significant public health concern and health disparity, and important contextual factors inform these findings. An emergent literature describes several rural AIAN community responses that seek to address youth suicide and SUD. This existing rural AIAN youth suicide and SUD prevention literature highlights a number of major, recurrent findings. It also identifies a set of approaches sharing a key grouping of intervention processes and characteristics. This chapter discusses effective practices and approaches in suicide and SUD prevention with rural AIAN youth, critical shortcomings in current work, and promising practices and directions for future work.

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Allen, J., Beehler, S., Gonzalez, J. (2016). Suicide and Substance Use Disorder Prevention for Rural American Indian and Alaska Native Youth. In: Crockett, L., Carlo, G. (eds) Rural Ethnic Minority Youth and Families in the United States. Advancing Responsible Adolescent Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20976-0_11

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