Yonette F. Thomas – författare

This study is an important first step in the development of a national policy on illegal drugs. It assesses two recent cost-effectiveness studies on cocaine control policy: one by RAND, Controlling Cocaine: Supply Versus Demand Programs, and the other by the Institute of Defense Analyses, An Empirical Examination of Counterdrug Interdiction Program Effectiveness.

This study is an important first step in the development of a national policy on illegal drugs. It assesses two recent cost-effectiveness studies on cocaine control policy: one by RAND, Controlling Cocaine: Supply Versus Demand Programs, and the other by the Institute of Defense Analyses, An Empirical Examination of Counterdrug Interdiction Program Effectiveness.

Carefully selected to reflect the latest research at the interface between public health and criminal justice in the US, these contributions each focus on an aspect of the relationship. How, for example, might a person’s criminal activity adversely affect their health or their risk of exposure to HIV infection? The issues addressed in this volume are at the heart of policy in both public health and criminal justice. The authors track a four-fold connection between the two fields, exploring the mental and physical health of incarcerated populations; the health consequences of crime, substance abuse, violence and risky sexual behaviors; the extent to which high crime rates are linked to poor health outcomes in the same neighborhood; and the results of public health interventions among traditional criminal justice populations.

As well as exploring these urgent issues, this anthology features a wealth of remarkable interdisciplinary contributions that see public health researchers focusing on crime, while criminologists attend to public health issues. The papers provide empirical data tracking, for example, the repercussions on public health of a fear of crime among residents of high-crime neighborhoods, and the correlations between HIV status and outcomes, and an individual’s history of criminal activity. Providing social scientists and policy makers with vital pointers on how the criminal justice and public health sectors might work together on the problems common to both, this collection breaks new ground by combining the varying perspectives of a number of key disciplines.

This volume examines trajectories of drug use among ethnic minority youth in the United States with a focus on African Americans and Hispanics. It also highlights what research designs have been employed to address these differences as well as suggests strategies for moving this discourse forward by identifying potential targets for prevention and intervention with minority youth.

This book features essays by leading experts in the field who have grappled with this issue for decades. Inside, readers will find an insightful dialogue that addresses such questions as: Why are African American and Hispanic youth more likely than their White peers to abstain from drug use during adolescence but are more likely to become problem users later in life? What impact does the stress caused by discrimination have on potential drug use? To what extent does religiosity protect minority youth from drug use as past research suggests that it protects White youth? What is the influence ofneighborhood context on exposure to and use of substances among urban African American children? Taken together, the essays in this book identify underexplored risk and protective factors and gaps in the current state of knowledge that can be used to develop effective, culturally specific drug abuse prevention strategies.

This book is for anyone with an interest in the initiation and escalation of drug use among African Americans and Hispanics/Latinos and factors that influence these patterns over the life course.  It will also be an ideal resource for those interested in better understanding the mechanisms by which risk and protective factors are related to the development of drug use and addiction, particularly the ways in which such factors contribute to health differences and have disproportionately more negative consequences for ethnic minorities.