Atlanta, GA: Student surveys underestimate the prevalence of substance use particularly the use of alcohol and tobacco, among young people according to findings to be published in the forthcoming issue of the Journal of School Health.
An international research team from Switzerland and the United States found that students who are absent on the day that self-report drug surveys are given are far more likely to report the use of alcohol, tobacco, or marijuana than their peers. Inclusion of the data from absent students more than doubled the percentage of students reporting substance use, researchers found.
“The prevalence of risk behaviors was higher in absent than present students,” authors concluded. “Adjusting for data of absent students increased the prevalence estimates in the base population.”
In the United States, government officials rely primarily on a single student survey of self-reported drug use, performed by the University of Michigan, to estimate the prevalence of substance use among young people. The most recent edition of the study, which has been performed annually since 1975, finds that slightly more than half of American 12th graders report having used an illicit substance during their lifetime — a figure that has remained virtually unchanged over the past thirty years.
For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, NORML Executive Director, or Paul Armentano, NORML Senior Policy Analyst, at (202) 483-5500. Abstracts of the study, “Comparison of smoking, drinking, and marijuana use between students present or absent on the day of a school-based survey,” is available online at: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1746-1561.2006.00081.x