Introduction

The large sample size of the 1997 NHSDA allows estimates of the prevalence of drug use to be made for a variety of special populations, in addition to demographic subgroups defined by age, gender, race/ethnicity, population density, region, adult education, and current employment. This chapter presents drug use prevalence information by the following characteristics: (a) indicators of socioeconomic status, including family income, health insurance coverage, and receipt of welfare assistance; (b) arrests in the past 12 months; (c) pregnancy status among women of childbearing age (i.e., ages 15 to 44);26 and (d) occurrence of selected mental health syndromes among adults. Findings from this chapter are expected to be useful to policymakers and service providers who work with members of special populations defined by these characteristics, and more generally to extend knowledge of how substance abuse behaviors are distributed across important population subgroups. The final set of findings presented in this chapter focuses on drug use among youths and the relationship between these behaviors and the attitudes toward drugs held by youths' parents and peers.

26 To ensure acceptable reliability of estimates for pregnant women, the estimates for women of childbearing age include data from the 1996 and 1997 NHSDAs.