Youth To Youth Empowerment

The Youth To Youth Empowerment lab is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse to conduct a youth-centered mixed methods study. The goal of the Youth To Youth Empowerment lab is for youth researchers of color to foster their interest in research, center their voices in research, and ensure the research addresses the community's needs. The goal of our research study is to identify and examine associations among social and structural contexts and interpersonal and individual level factors with substance use and sexual risk taking among urban American Indian and Alaska Native and Black youth of Denver Metro, CO. Findings will be used to develop and operationalize a comprehensive and multilevel conceptual framework of risk and protective factors of behavioral health outcomes of youth of color. Our research team of six high school students of color will identify the most critical levels on which to intervene and work towards developing a strengths-based multilevel intervention to reduce substance misuse and sexual risk among urban youth of color.