Grassroots interventions for alcohol use disorders in the Mexican immigrant community: A narrative literature review.

This narrative literature review addresses grassroots interventions for alcohol use disorders as practiced in Mexican immigrant communities. These organic efforts are 24-hour AA groups, or anexos, fourth and fifth step AA groups, juramentos, and curanderismo. Literature was identified using PubMed and CINAHL and limited to works published from 2000 to 2018. In all, three publications on 24-hour groups were found, two on fourth and fifth step groups, four on juramentos, and one on curanderismo use. The review offers insight on their practices and concludes that the interventions' cultural resonance provides advantages over cultural competency AUDs programs developed in public health.

Developing the Juramento into an Evidence-Based Brief Intervention: A Brief Report.

INTRODUCTION: This brief report recommends how the effectiveness of the juramento, a practice found in Mexican Catholicism, can be enhanced by combining it with Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment. The juramento is a grassroots intervention around a sacred pledge made to Our Lady of Guadalupe to abstain from alcohol from 6 months to 1 year. METHOD: The recommendations are made possible from an ongoing qualitative study on the use of the juramento among Mexican immigrant farmworkers in southeastern Pennsylvania. The subsample for this report is 15 Mexican immigrant farmworkers who made a juramento and two priests who administer the intervention. RESULTS: Adding the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test and a referral to treatment in the counseling session of the juramento keeps its religious and cultural appeal. The core of the intervention-the ritualized pledge to Our Lady of Guadalupe-remains intact. CONCLUSION: Approaching the juramento with an evidence-based brief intervention lens will expand the availability of culturally based interventions to include a grassroots intervention in the Mexican immigrant community. The juramento is organic, rooted in culture and religion, making it more likely that it will help in reducing alcohol use disorders, especially those with strong religiosity.