Youth Substance  Use: State Estimates From the 1999 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse

5. RISK AND PROTECTIVE FACTORS

The 1999 NHSDA collected information on a number of risk and protective factors for youth substance use. Risk and protective factors involve attitudes and behavior associated with a higher likelihood of use or nonuse of alcohol, cigarettes, and illicit drugs. These factors are typically classified into a number of domains, such as peer/individual, school, family, and community. A detailed report on these factors based on the 1999 data is to be released later in 2001; however, a short discussion is included here of four of the constructs in the peer/individual domain because that domain has a large impact on whether youths use illicit drugs (also see Lane et al., 2001).

This report presents estimates for risk and protective factors in several content domains, including four constructs in the peer/individual domain: antisocial behavior, favorable attitudes toward substance use, peer attitudes favorable toward substance use, and peer substance use. Each construct was based on averaging responses to multiple questions (for questions on each measure, see Appendix I).

The antisocial behavior scale (six questions) ranges from 1 (a youth who had no delinquent actions in the past year) to 5 (a youth who engaged in each delinquent action 10 or more times in the past year).

The scale measuring favorable attitudes toward substance use (three questions) is based on ratings of 1 (a youth who strongly disapproved of drug use among same-aged individuals), 2 (youth somewhat disapproved), and 3 (youth neither approved nor disapproved).

The scale for determining peer attitudes favorable toward substance use (three questions) has the same scale and items as the scale for favorable attitudes toward substance use, except that the questions are about their close friends' attitudes toward the respondent using these substances.

The peer substance use scale (four questions) is based on questions about how many friends use different substances. The following scale responses are used: 1 (none of them), 2 (a few of them), 3 (most of them), and 4 (all of them).

• The national mean scale score was 1.15 for antisocial behavior (Table C.8). There was little variation between the States with the lowest and highest scores. Wisconsin and Nebraska were lowest with 1.10, and Delaware was highest with 1.21. Although the differences between these States were statistically significant, the 95 percent confidence interval for the differences was wide, from about 0.01 to 0.21. Therefore, apparent differences between States should be interpreted very cautiously.

• The national mean score for favorable attitudes toward substance use was 1.55 (Table C.9). The State estimates had a range of 0.43 between the lowest State (Utah at 1.30) and the highest State (Delaware at 1.73). Note that these scores are a composite measure of attitudes about cigarettes, marijuana, and alcohol; therefore, one should be careful about comparing these scores to State prevalence estimates that are based on the use of a single substance.

• The national mean of peer attitudes favorable toward substance use was 1.61 (Table C.10.). The State scores ranged from 1.34 in Utah to 1.78 in Colorado. Comparing the States with high scores to the national mean, one can be 95 percent certain that States with scores of 1.73 or higher are higher than the national mean. As with the individual attitudes toward substance use, these measures were based on a composite of cigarettes, marijuana, and alcohol, and care should be taken when comparing these to prevalence estimates of individual substances.

• Finally, the national mean for peer substance use was 1.69 (Table C.11). Peer substance use is a composite measure of alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana. Utah had the lowest score (1.46), and West Virginia had the highest (1.88). Because West Virginia falls in the top fifth on this list, but not in the top fifth for either past month alcohol use or past month marijuana use, its high ranking on this composite measure is probably due to its ranking near the top for past month cigarette use.

This page was last updated on June 03, 2008.

SAMHSA, an agency in the Department of Health and Human Services, is the Federal Government's lead agency for improving the quality and availability of substance abuse prevention, addiction treatment, and mental health services in the United States.