YoungJu Shin

Suicide is a major cause of death, yet it is a preventable social problem (World Health Organization, 2026). Recent reports indicate that every 28 individuals in 100,000 people die by suicide, whic...

Using cross‐sectional and longitudinal data from a drug and violence prevention program of Nicaraguan adolescents, this study offers a unique look into personal, family, peer, and communal factors for depression and post‐traumatic stress symptoms (PTSD). This study draws on primary socialization theory to hypothesize that family, peer, and community factors have a significant impact on youth mental health outcomes. A total of 4631 adolescents (ages 10–17, 49% female) completed self‐report surveys in schools. Path models showed that cross‐sectionally, parental factors including parental monitoring, parental relationship satisfaction, family expressiveness, and peer factors such as friend support were negatively associated with PTSD and depression, whereas adolescent alcohol use and externalizing behaviors, engagement in prosocial behaviors with peers, and exposure to community violence were positively associated with PTSD and depression, controlling for age, sex, region, and intervention effects. A longitudinal model showed that alcohol use pre‐crisis predicted PTSD post‐crisis. Findings have practical implications for intervention by highlighting the importance of protecting adolescents from exposure to community violence as well as providing multiple layers of support during crisis.

Narratives play a powerful role in sharing meaning and making sense of experiences. Specifically, health narratives convey storylines, characters, and messages about health-related behaviors and provide audiences with models for healthy behaviors, prompting audiences' health-related reflections and decision-making. Narrative engagement theory (NET) explains how personal narratives can be integrated into interventions to promote health. This study utilizes NET to test direct and indirect effects of teachers' narrative quality on adolescent outcomes during a school-based substance use prevention intervention that includes narrative pedagogy and an implementation strategy. Observational coding of teacher narratives in video-recorded lessons along with self-report student surveys (N = 1,683) were subjected to path analysis. Findings showed significant direct effects of narrative quality on student engagement, norms (i.e. personal, best-friend injunctive, and descriptive norms), and substance use behavior. The analysis also yielded support for indirect effects of narrative quality on adolescent substance use behavior via student engagement, personal norms, and descriptive norms. Findings highlight important issues related to teacher-student interaction during implementation and contributes implications for adolescent substance use prevention research.

Anti-Asian sentiment has undoubtedly increased since the COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020. Violence against Asian populations has notably surged (Pillai et al., 2021). In 16 of the largest US ...

Guided by narrative engagement theory and social cognitive theory, the present study investigates effects of narrative persuasion and peer communication on Nicaraguan adolescent substance use. Eighth-grade students in Nicaragua were recruited to participate in the culturally grounded, school-based prevention intervention Dale se REAL and to watch five entertainment-education intervention videos that teach drug refusal communication strategies. Using the cross-sectional survey (N = 224), a path analysis was run to examine the mediated moderation effects of narrative engagement (e.g., interest, realism, and identification with main characters) and peer communication about the intervention videos (e.g., frequency and valence of communication) on adolescent refusal self-efficacy and substance use behaviors. Results revealed that realism was significantly related to adolescent refusal self-efficacy and frequent peer communication moderated the association between refusal self-efficacy and the past 30-day marijuana use. Findings suggest that health communication scholars should take into consideration social factors and cultural contexts for adolescent substance use prevention research.

The present study aimed to investigate the relationships between perceived discrimination and collective fears in Mexican-heritage adolescents of immigrant families living in the U.S (N = 210) by revalidating a new scale of collective fear (e.g., specific fear in person, specific fear in family, and widespread fear). Confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis was run to test the concurrent validity. The results revealed that perceived discrimination was significantly related to specific fear in person, specific fear in family, and widespread fear. Perceived fear was also significantly associated with mental health.

Communication plays an important role in health decisions and behaviors. Friends and family exert influence through communication and, when considering smoking, this is particularly salient among those friends and family who smoke. Guided by primary socialization theory and integrated behavioral model, the present study examined the effects of having smoking friends and family on smoking beliefs (e.g. negative consequences, positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement), cultural normative beliefs, pro-smoking injunctive norms, smoking intentions and recent smoking behaviors. Cross-sectional online survey data were collected from college students (N = 227). Multivariate analysis of covariance and path analysis were performed. College students who reported having smoking friends were more likely to report higher levels of positive reinforcement, cultural normative beliefs, pro-smoking injunctive norms, positive attitudes, smoking intentions and recent smoking behaviors than those without smoking friends. Frequent communication with smoking friends was significantly related to cultural normative beliefs, pro-smoking injunctive norms, positive attitudes and smoking intentions. The analysis, however, did not yield statistical support for the associations between frequent communication with smoking family and smoking perceptions, norms and behaviors. The present study highlights the vital roles of friends' influence for college students' smoking behaviors. Communication-based intervention can help better equip college students with communication strategies that prevent tobacco use by promoting more effective conversations with friends.

Social interface model (SIM) explicates the important roles of family, peer, and school microsystems in intervention research. The present study used surveys to explore how Nicaraguan adolescents who participated in a school-based substance use and violence prevention intervention communicated about the intervention with parents, peers, and teachers. Latent class analysis was run to identify distinctive typologies of interfaces characterized by occurrence and importance of conversations. Five latent classes (N = 109) were discovered: optimal transference (21%), neutral transference (17%), limited positive transference (17%), negligible neutral interface (28%), and negligible adverse interface (16%). The optimal transference and neutral transference groups reported having conversations with all three microsystems (i.e. their mother, father, best friend, and teachers) and that those conversations resulted in seeing the curriculum the same way or as more important. The negligible neutral interface and negligible adverse interface groups reported minimal or no conversation across microsystems, which resulted in viewing the curriculum as not important or less important. The limited positive transference group reported selective conversations mostly with their mother and teachers, which was evaluated as important and/or neutral. Findings discuss the application of SIM in prevention research and provide a more nuanced understanding of how intervention messages are recalled and processed post-delivery.