American Indian Cultures: How CBPR Illuminated Intertribal Cultural Elements Fundamental to an Adaptation Effort

Abstract

The ever-increasing numbers of ethnic minority populations in the United States seeking social services suggests that a “multicultural paradigm shift” is underway and gaining speed. This shift will increasingly demand that prevention programs and interventions be more culturally responsive. Interventions that are not aligned with prospective participants’ world views and experiences are only minimally effective. Existing models for conducting culturally grounded program adaptations emphasize identifying distinct levels of cultural influences while preserving core elements of the original intervention. An effective adaptation requires competent language translation as well as trained translations of program concepts and principles that will be meaningful to the targeted group, without compromising program fidelity. This article describes how a university research team and curriculum developers worked with American Indian youth and adults in a large southwestern city using a CBPR process to identify cultural elements that became foundational to the adaptation of a prevention curriculum that is a national model program, with the objective of increasing its applicability for urban native youth.

Culturally responsive approaches to health promotion for Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders

“…Health interventions not aligned with the cultural values, perspectives, and preferred modes of living of the target population are presumed to be less effective than culturally responsive interventions that account for these factors (Jumper-Reeves et al 2014). Most evidence-based interventions (EBI) are developed using Western-centric theories of behaviour change and behavioural strategies tested in samples of predominately non-Hispanic Whites.…”

“…CBPR is well suited as a research approach to the cultural adaptation of existing EBI (Jumper-Reeves et al 2014) as well as develop novel cultural grounded interventions (Walters et al in press). Qualitative approaches to solicit cultural expertise for the adaptation of an EBI have been used in NHPI communities, such as the use of focus groups with community members, informant interviews with community leaders and health professionals (e.g., elders and gatekeepers), and “windshield tours” of the community infrastructure and resources (Mau et al 2010).…”

Cultural Identity Among Urban American Indian/Alaska Native Youth: Implications for Alcohol and Drug Use

“…Such an approach is necessary to posit plausible causal pathways between urban AI/AN identity and AOD use that are grounded in community understandings rather than imposed from a pre-existing theoretical angle, and to provide contextual grounding for quantitative analysis (Yoshikawa, Kalil, Weisner, & Way, 2008). Thus, our study fills a significant gap in the existing literature in that it approaches urban AI/AN cultural identity with a qualitative, community-based participatory research (CBPR) method (Hartmann, Wendt, Saftner, Marcus, & Momper, 2014; Jumper-Reeves, Dustman, Harthun, Kulis, & Brown, 2014) - a method that involves community stakeholders in the research process - that explicitly addresses links between cultural identity and AOD use among urban AI/AN youth and explores implications for intervention development.…”

Parenting in 2 Worlds: Effects of a Culturally Adapted Intervention for Urban American Indians on Parenting Skills and Family Functioning

“…Many of the cultural adaptations in P2W involved the incorporation of AI cultural values and common inter-tribal cultural elements, distinctive AI worldviews on rearing children, and family challenges specific to the AI urban experience (Reeves, et al, 2014; Kulis et al, 2015). Informants in the adaptation phases stressed the need to embed the intervention’s core elements in a value system common to different AI heritages, emphasizing cultural strengths.…”