Een kwalitatieve verkenning van gepercipieerde discriminatie, etnische identiteit, sociaal netwerk en middelengebruik bij personen met een Turkse en Oost-Europese migratieachtergrond in Gent

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Implementing community-based participatory research in the study of substance use and service utilisation in Eastern European and Turkish communities in Belgium

Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) is an effective strategy to promote action research regarding health and substance use issues. The London-based Centre for Ethnicity and Health's CBPR model was replicated in Belgium to study substance use and service utilisation in Bulgarian, Slovakian and Turkish communities in the city of Ghent. This article focuses on the implementation of the CBPR model, challenges and adaptions linked to the Belgian context. In this paper, we describe the study design and actors involved, namely (1) community organisations, (2) the community advisory board and (3) community researchers. Furthermore, we focus on the challenges and pitfalls of the CBPR method and its implications, including (1) community collaboration, (2) co-ethnic researchers, (3) characteristics of the respondents and (4) empowerment of the respective communities. We conclude by discussing potential pathways for future CBPR in the field of substance use and service utilisation among migrants and ethnic minorities

Drug use changes at the individual level : Results from a longitudinal, multisite survey in young europeans frequenting the nightlife scene

Background: Monitoring emerging trends in the increasingly dynamic European drug market is vital; however, information on change at the individual level is scarce. In the current study, we investigated changes in drug use over 12 months in European nightlife attendees. Method: In this longitudinal online survey, changes in substances used, use frequency in continued users, and relative initiation of use at follow-up were assessed for 20 different substances. To take part, participants had to be aged 18–34 years; be from Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, or the UK; and have attended at least 6 electronic music events in the past 12 months at baseline. Of 8,045 volunteers at baseline, 2,897 completed the survey at both time points (36% follow-up rate), in 2017 and 2018. Results: The number of people using ketamine increased by 21% (p < 0.001), and logarithmized frequency of use in those continuing use increased by 15% (p < 0.001; 95% CI: 0.07–0.23). 4-Fluoroamphetamine use decreased by 27% (p < 0.001), and logarithmized frequency of use in continuing users decreased by 15% (p < 0.001, 95% CI: −0.48 to −0.23). The drugs with the greatest proportion of relative initiation at follow-up were synthetic cannabinoids (73%, N = 30), mephedrone (44%, N = 18), alkyl nitrites (42%, N = 147), synthetic dissociatives (41%, N = 15), and prescription opioids (40%, N = 48). Conclusions: In this European nightlife sample, ketamine was found to have the biggest increase in the past 12 months, which occurred alongside an increase in frequency of use in continuing users. The patterns of uptake and discontinuation of alkyl nitrates, novel psychoactive substances, and prescription opioids provide new information that has not been captured by existing cross-sectional surveys. These findings demonstrate the importance of longitudinal assessments of drug use and highlight the dynamic nature of the European drug landscape

Substance use among people with a migration background : a community based participatory research study

Professionals working in addiction care in both Belgium and other European countries have identified a discrepancy between the prevalence of problem substance use among people with a migration background, and the presence of people with a migration background in treatment facilities. However, little research is currently available on this topic. This study attempts to fill the knowledge gap in existing research by exploring the patterns of substance use, expectations and treatment needs of people with a migration background in four Belgian target groups (the Turkish community in Ghent; the Eastern European communities in Ghent; the Congolese community in Brussels; and asylum applicants, refugees and undocumented migrants). Substance users with a migration background can be particularly difficult for researchers to reach, so community researchers were recruited to interview substance users from within their own network. Over 200 people were interviewed. The project was carried out in close collaboration with the respective communities and with stakeholders in addiction care. This book presents the findings of the study, together with recommendations for health care policy and the practice of addiction care. It also details the explorative and qualitative community-based participatory research design (CBPR) that was used to facilitate the study

Studying ethnicity and substance use: ontological considerations and methodological implications

In this paper we elaborate on the conceptual premises of studying ethnicity in an ongoing community based participatory research project (Green et al. 1995, Minkler et al. 2004, Israel etal. 2010) about the nature of substance use and access to treatment facilities in the Turkish community in Ghent (Belgium). Due to a lack of prevalence studies in ethnic and cultural minorities in Belgium and to the growing medicalization of research on substance use and mental health (Bracke, 2015), researchers often feel compelled to rely on US based epidemiological studies when grounding knowledge on the link between ethnicity and substance use (Derluyn, 2008). We argue that the bulk of US based epidemiological research suffers from crucial methodological and conceptual flaws that impel us to reconsider their usefulness in the European context. First, US community research starts out from overly simplified and static concepts of ethnicity and race as primordial analytical categories. Second, and as a consequence of the first argument, this research rarely distinguishes sufficiently between ethnic and non-ethnic determinants and mechanisms influencing substance use and access to treatment. And third, these studies often depart from methodological individualism and subordinates contextual and structural determinants and mechanisms. This paper aims at re-evaluating (the factors and mechanisms mediating) the relation between ethnicity, the nature of substance use, access to drug treatment and at overcoming some of the gaps in existing research methods mentioned above. More specifically, this implies (1) a dynamisation and critical revision of the concept of ethnicity with a focus on ethnic boundary making practices, (2) the inclusion of non-ethnic determinants and mechanisms, and (3) the broadening of methodological individualism so as to include all levels (from meso to macro) and loci (individual, community, society) of research. Such doubled research practices (Lather, 2007) allow researchers to both analyze and impact upon unequal social outcomes