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STUDY PROTOCOL article

Front. Public Health

Sec. Substance Use Disorders and Behavioral Addictions

Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1663919

This article is part of the Research TopicSubstance Use Research and Population HealthView all 8 articles

Kipiyecipakiciipe ("Coming Home"): A Study Protocol for a Multi-Method Investigation of Culturally Grounded Resilience against Substance-Use among Shawnee Adults

Provisionally accepted
Evan  WhiteEvan White1,2*Ryan  TommRyan Tomm1Danielle  L BethelDanielle L Bethel1Gabe  CochranGabe Cochran3Makiah  TorresMakiah Torres1Nicole  R BaughmanNicole R Baughman1Andrea  WigelsworthAndrea Wigelsworth1Xi  RenXi Ren1Wesley  VaughtWesley Vaught1
  • 1Laureate Institute for Brain Research, Tulsa, United States
  • 2The University of Tulsa Oxley College of Health & Natural Sciences, Tulsa, United States
  • 3Oklahoma State University Department of Psychology, Stillwater, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Background: American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) peoples bear the highest U.S. burden of substance-use disorder (SUD) and drug-overdose mortality. Mechanistic evidence linking community-defined cultural protective factors to neurobehavioral pathways of SUD risk is virtually absent. Most AI/AN health studies are descriptive and rarely integrate neuroscience. Objectives: The Kipiyecipakiciipe ("coming home") project aims to (i) operationalize Shawnee-defined cultural engagement variables, (ii) test their associations with neurobehavioral markers of reward, decision-making, and self-regulation, and (iii) establish evidence base for tribally guided prevention and recovery strategies. Methods: Guided by community-based participatory research, the three-phase multi-method protocol combines qualitative inquiry, a Community Readiness Assessment (CRA), and multimodal neuroimaging. Phase 1 included 22 Shawnee adults and employed N = 3 focus-group discussions (including Nominal Group Technique) and N = 1 in-depth interview to generate an operational lexicon of cultural protective factors and to adapt a Community Needs Assessment (CNA). Phase 2 enrolls 90 Shawnee adults in a simultaneous functional MRI/electro-encephalography (fMRI/EEG) battery comprising culturally tailored picture and audio paradigms, a Monetary Incentive Delay task, a three-arm bandit task, and the Horizon exploration task. Self-report scales assess cultural identity, mental health, substance use, impulsivity, and risk. Parallel CRA interviews (n = 12) quantify community readiness for SUD interventions across six dimensions. Phase 3 will recruit Shawnee citizens with lived SUD experience to examine whether cultural, behavioral, and neural markers predict recovery-related outcomes (e.g., craving, self-efficacy). Discussion: By integrating community insight with state-of-the-art neuroimaging under Tribal governance, this protocol addresses critical knowledge gaps in Indigenous SUD research, models CARE-aligned data stewardship and establishes a transferable framework for culturally grounded precision substance use prevention.

Keywords: substance use disorder, Indigenous health, Neuroimaging, Community readiness, qualitative methods, mixed-methods, tribal sovereignty, population health

Received: 11 Jul 2025; Accepted: 30 Sep 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 White, Tomm, Bethel, Cochran, Torres, Baughman, Wigelsworth, Ren and Vaught. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Evan White, ewhite@laureateinstitute.org

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