School and community influences on adolescent alcohol and drug use

Social environmental risk factors present in schools and communities have not been thoroughly investigated. This study crosssectionally examined the social environments of schools and communities, and their influence on adolescent alcohol and drug use. Survey responses of eighth grade students (N =...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Health education research 1997-06, Vol.12 (2), p.255-266
Main Authors: Roski, Joachim, Perry, Cheryl L., McGovern, Paul G., Williams, Carolyn L., Farbakhsh, Kian, Veblen-Mortenson, Sara
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adolescent Behavior
Alcohol Drinking
Biological and medical sciences
Female
Health technology assessment
High schools
Humans
Interviews as Topic
Male
Marijuana Smoking
Medical sciences
ORIGINAL ARTICLES
Parents
Prevention and actions
Public health. Hygiene
Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine
Schools
Social Environment
Social influence
Specific populations (family, woman, child, elderly...)
Students
Substance abuse
USA
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Summary:Social environmental risk factors present in schools and communities have not been thoroughly investigated. This study crosssectionally examined the social environments of schools and communities, and their influence on adolescent alcohol and drug use. Survey responses of eighth grade students (N = 2309), a random half of their parents (n = 943), community leaders (n = 118), school principals (n = 30), school counselors (n = 30) and chemical health providers (n = 14) were pooled to create indices of social environmental norms, role models, social support and opportunities for non-use of alcohol. Each index was examined for its association with prevalences from 30 schools of alcohol use onset, last-month alcohol use, heavy alcohol use and last-year marijuana use in univariate and stepwise regression analyses. Increases in the levels of norms, role models and opportunities for non-use predicted decreases in alcohol use prevalences. The explanatory power of the examined constructs in multivariate analyses was acceptably high (R2: 38–53%). These findings further support the notion that community-wide efforts need to be launched to affect changes in the normative, role model and opportunity structures of adolescents' social environments in order to curb adolescent alcohol and drug use.
ISSN:0268-1153
1465-3648
DOI:10.1093/her/12.2.255