FORMER DOCTOR DIAGNOSES COMMUNITY'S ILLS

As a doctor in his native Cuba, Raul Pino diagnosed ills that afflict the
human body. But now, as a social researcher at Hartford's Institute for
Community Research, he analyzes social problems afflicting neighborhoods
and communities.

The shift is not something he had expected, but he has a positive attitude
about it.

"Research is research," whether it is medical or social, he said. "I like
to find out about things, and that's what research is all about."

Pino came to the United States in 1995. But when his first attempt at
passing the exams for foreign-trained medical graduates - which would have
allowed him to practice medicine again - didn't pan out, he decided that
the most practical thing to do was transfer his diagnostic skills into the
field of social research.

"I like what I'm doing now," he said, "and besides, you have to do what you
have to do in order to survive" when you start over in another country.

"My wife and I didn't even speak a word of English when we arrived," he said.

Pino succeeded in acquiring better than basic English in a short period of
time, and he landed a job as an outreach worker at Hartford's Hispanic
Council. In 1998, three years after he left Cuba, he became a project
director at the institute.

These days, Pino is working with the institute's principal investigator,
Jean Schensul, on a project whose main goal is to pinpoint the factors that
lead young people to go from the abuse of soft drugs, such as marijuana, to
that of hard drugs, such as cocaine and heroin.

The population under study consists of 400 people aged 16 to 24, 95 percent
of whom live in Hartford; the rest are from surrounding towns, such as
Windsor and Windsor Locks.

As a social researcher, Pino has learned to see people as participants in a
network of relationships within small groups - families and friends - and
within larger institutions, such as schools, churches, state agencies and
court systems.

The study, titled "Pathways to Drug Use Among Inner-City Youth," is
addressing three major questions, Pino said:

What role does family drug history play in drug addiction?;

What role does selling drugs play in drug abuse?;

What role does the drug ecstasy play in the transition from soft-drug use
to hard-drug use?

Pino directs a team of three outreach workers who interview the people
involved in the study. The subjects get $25 for agreeing to be interviewed.

Each day, Pino looks at interviews that were done the day before, enters
the information on the computer, making sure the proper safeguards to
protect the privacy of the interviewees are in place, and passes the
interviews on to a data analyst.

Every Tuesday afternoon, Pino meets with other staff members involved in
the project to discuss where it is going, how participants are responding,
and whether the researchers should modify the approach they are taking.

Initially, the researchers had not considered studying the drug ecstasy,
Pino said. But the people under study seem to be more and more involved
with the drug, requiring a shift in focus.

If ecstasy is playing a role in the transition from soft-to hard-drug use,
Pino said, "is ecstasy delaying the transition because people get into this
'happiness state,' and they want to stay there, or is ecstasy speeding up
the process?"

It's too soon to know the answers to this and other questions, Pino said,
but he and his co-workers are making progress. The study is expected to be
completed in March.

Pino sometimes feels frustrated about not being able to "fix things" when
he's talking to "a nice kid who is 16 or 18, and you see where this person
is going, but you can't interfere with their life."

This is not about the fix provided by surgery, he said, or about a pill
that corrects high blood pressure.

"Human behavior is the hardest to fix," Pino said. "Human behavior is very
complex."

(SIDEBAR)

A DAY'S WORK

NAME: Raul Pino

JOB TITLE: project director, Institute for Community Research

AGE: 38

YEARS ON THE JOB: 3.5

HOMETOWN: Glastonbury

SALARY: $40,000 to $50,000