HEALTH INTERVENTIONS FOR AFRICAN-AMERICAN AND LATINO YOUTH - THE POTENTIAL ROLE OF MASS-MEDIA

Children in Latino and African American families are far more likely t o live in urban, high-poverty settings that greatly increase risks to healthy development. During adolescence, these settings are particular ly hazardous for their role in the social transmission of risk behavio r. Community-wide health promotion using local mass media can countera ct these influences by reaching preadolescents and adolescents, their parents, and other adults in urban communities with safe-behavior mess ages. These massages can be designed to make safer behavior more accep table and normative in the community, to increase awareness of communi ty resources for adolescents, and to reverse the stereotyping and disr egard that characterize media content about impoverished communities. Evidence is reviewed that, despite their poverty status, African Ameri can and Latino communities have considerable social resources to which community-wide health promotion can appeal, including strong family b onds, religious attachment, and concern about the community. The influ ence of these resources is exemplified by relatively low rates of adol escent drug use. Health promotion conducted regularly through local ma ss media could be an effective strategy to improve the health of adole scents in urban communities.