Communicating identities in health information seeking: Single African American mothers, preadolescent substance use prevention, and the Internet

Single, African American mothers are the sole parent in many African American homes. Their parenting status may put them and their family at risk with potentially negative health outcomes for their families. The mothers' mental health and parenting practices may suffer, in addition to the quality of health information they are afforded. One important resource that should be available in high risk environments is parent-based preadolescent substance use prevention information, especially since experimentation predominantly begins in preadolescent. Experimentation can increase the use of routine substance use/abuse in adolescence, which portends adult abuse. This trajectory has implications for teen pregnancy, deviant behaviors, HIV, and other serious diseases and illness. In consideration of the informational health disparities plaguing under-resourced and minority communities, the internet has the potential to provide access to parent-based substance use prevention information in order to enhance single, African American, mothers' role as prevention agents.;While there has been an increase in internet use by under-resourced communities, it is rare to find health information designed for culturally and racially diverse low income users.;Therefore, the goals of this dissertation were to (1) describe the ways in which African American mothers perceive their socioeconomic, cultural, and single parent identities and the ways in which these interact with health-related factors (preadolescent substance use); (2) identify the relationships among these identities, health-related factors, and their views of the internet as a possible source for the dissemination of preadolescent drug prevention information; and (3) assess the feasibility of online communication of adolescent drug prevention for this community of women. This study focuses on single African American mothers currently receiving public assistance, and who are already seeking online information.;This research found seven themes through which these mothers envisioned their personal, communal, and parent/child relational identities and eight tropes defining their conceptualizations of substance use as well as preadolescent substance use across the health-related components, perceived threat, self-efficacy, and direct experience. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).