Measuring use of alcohol and other drugs among adolescents.
Year: 1993
Type: article
Abstract: Despite reductions in recent years, drug use is widely believed to be greater among youth in America than among youth in any other industrialized nation. An estimated 9.3 million American youth, 46 percent of those ages 12 to 17 living in the general population, have used alcohol; and 4.0 million, 20 percent of those in the same age group, have used an illegal drug other than alcohol (1). The use of alcohol and other drugs has an enormous impact on the nation's physical, social, and economic health. Much of the economic cost can be attributed to lost productivity (2). Drug-related crimes contribute significantly to our overloaded legal and criminal justice systems. People who misuse alcohol and use other drugs require a disproportionate share of health care services. Families and schools struggle with the adverse impact of the use of alcohol and other drugs among adolescents. Further, the use of these substances may be both a cause and an effect of homelessness (3). Alcohol and other drug use are preventable behaviors that usually are established during youth and that may extend into adulthood. The use of these substances jeopardizes physical, mental, and social development during a person's formative years, thereby endangering successful transitions from adolescent to adult roles (4). Public and private agencies, including schools, commu nity and business organizations, and State and local departments of education and health, can help children and adolescents avoid, or reduce risks associated with, the use of alcohol and other drugs. The development and nature of programs that effectively accomplish these aims depend in part on information about specific behaviors associated with the use of these substances. This paper describes the development of questions related to the use of alcohol and other drugs for the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) question naire. The YRBSS Panel Participants (see Appendix I, page 56) first identified major shortand long-term health outcomes associated with using these substances. Guided by national health objectives for the year 2000 (3), we developed questions that would elicit informa tion on priority behavioral dimensions of alcohol and other drug use.
Source: Europe PMC (PubMed Central)
Author: A J Blanken
Language: English
Subfield: Epidemiology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2246964473