The purpose of the ETUDES Center cultural adaptation is to inform the design of interventions to improve prevention, screening, and management of depression and suicidality among adolescents in the Latino population in primary care settings. The ETUDES cultural adaptation also wishes to offer insight into the usability, practicality, and acceptability of designed interventions (such as BRITE) within the Latino population.
Cultural adaptation of an intervention typically involves culturally competent researchers working with the target population to cater the intervention more toward the given culture. This process, sometimes called transcreation, aims to make changes to an intervention to account for any differences in belief patterns, social positions, histories, etc. of the target population. Transcreation utilizes translation from culturally competent individuals, input from the target population through qualitative interviews and focus groups, and testing the adapted intervention with potential users from the target population.
The ETUDES Center has received feedback from the Latino population regarding the format of interventions, as well as adding content addressing familism (a strong identification with one's extended family), immigration-related stressors, misconceptions about the health system, goal development, and intergenerational conflict.
The ETUDES Center wishes to adapt its interventions to suit the needs of the rapidly growing Latino population in the Pittsburgh area in order to provide culturally-appropriate mental health services.
