Contrary to popular stereotypes, current studies of adolescent populations suggest that Black teens are less likely to use illicit drugs than are White teens. This study investigates the extent to which differences in religiosity are responsible for racial differences in drug use. Using data from a national survey of United States high school seniors, our results indicate that religion does provide some protection from drug use by adolescents. However, religiosity has less of an impact on the drug use of Black adolescents, perhaps as a result of the diverse roles of the Black church.

Curbing adolescent substance abuse is a national priority in the United States. To effectively allocate resources it is imperative that antecedents and correlates of drug use across diverse populations be understood. Racial and ethnic differences in drug use have yet to be explained. Because family characteristics are known to vary across race/ethnic groups, and prior research suggests a connection between family characteristics and adolescent drug use, this study investigates the impact of family on race/ethnic differences in drug use. Using data from a national household survey, we found that although socioeconomic and demographic characteristics alone explained drug use differences between Latinos and non-Latino whites, the differences between Black and white adolescents could not be explained by either structural or functional differences in the family. Furthermore, it appears that the single-parent Black family provides a greater protection against drug use than does the two-biological-parent Black family. Our findings suggest that the development of policy based on a knowledge of correlates of substance use within the white community may be both inefficient and ineffective when applied to minority communities.

Breast cancer kills more than 46,000 women each year. Previous research has found that minorities and those who reside in geographically remote settings are particularly vulnerable. However, virtually no research has been done on the potential "double jeopardy" faced by rural minority women. This research examines (1) the extent to which racial and residential differences contribute to differences in stage at diagnosis; (2) the existence of an interaction between race and residence, which may place black rural women at greater risk; and (3) the influence of both individual and structural characteristics on racial and residential differences. The findings indicate that rural black women are diagnosed with breast cancer much later than are black urban women or whites of either residence. A number of individual and structural variables were influential in predicting stage at diagnosis, yet none of these accounted entirely for racial differences.

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