Engaging Adolescents in the Fight Against Drug Abuse and Addiction: A Concept Mapping Approach

To identify contextually-relevant strategies for reducing and eventually eliminating addiction, it is imperative to engage stakeholders that are most affected by drug abuse but typically left out of the conversation, such as adolescents.

The aim of this study was to collaborate with 45 adolescent stakeholders participating in a school-based research program to identify areas to address addiction.

Guided by a modified version of the mixed-methods concept mapping approach, adolescents were asked to brainstorm and sort a list of statements about how to address addiction in their community. The data were then analyzed via multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis.

The concept map identified eight clusters from 75 edited statements: policing/security (e.g., increase punishment for selling drugs), helping community (e.g., create more jobs), treatment (e.g., make treatments more affordable), increased awareness (e.g., identify and help at-risk youth), communication (e.g., more communication with people who are abusing drugs), increased understanding/education (e.g., online communities for people who are abusing drugs), clean up community (e.g., clean up abandoned houses) and prevent addiction (e.g., effectively deal with peer pressure).

These stakeholder-driven ideas are consistent with the socioecological framework of addressing substance use and add to the credibility and transferability of individual and systemic level approaches to reducing substance use in marginalized communities.

This study emphasizes the feasibility of engaging adolescents in the development of contextually-relevant addiction education, prevention, and treatment interventions in underserved communities.