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Contact Media Services: (240) 276-2130

SAMHSA News Bulletin

Date: 4/3/2009
Media Contact: SAMHSA Press Office
Telephone: 240-276-2130

National Survey Finds a Decrease in the Percentage of Adolescents Seeing Substance Use Prevention Messages in the Media

A new national report issued during National Alcohol Awareness Month provides both discouraging and encouraging news about the state of efforts to inform young people about the risks of underage drinking and illicit substances. 

The report, based on a series of national surveys, finds that a smaller percentage of adolescents (age 12-17) were exposed to substance use prevention messages in 2007 (77.9 percent) than in 2002 (83.2 percent).  Similarly, a smaller percentage of adolescents are participating in out of school substance use prevention programs (from 12.7 percent in 2002 to 11.3 percent in 2007), according to the report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

However, the report shows a significant rise during this same period in the level of adolescents who engaged in substance abuse-related conversations with at least one parent (from 58.1 percent in 2002 to 59.6 percent in 2007). The report shows that these conversations are associated with lower rates of current substance use by an adolescent. 

Adolescents who had conversations with their parents about the dangers of substance abuse were significantly less likely to be current users of the following substances than those who did not have such conversations with their parents:

• Alcohol (16.2 percent versus 18.3 percent)
• Cigarettes (10.6 percent versus 12.5 percent)
• Illicit Drugs (9.5 percent versus 11.7 percent)   

“Alcohol Awareness Month highlights the crucial role that parents play in informing and influencing their adolescent sons and daughters about alcohol and substance use,” said SAMHSA’s Acting Administrator, Eric Broderick, D.D.S, M.P.H.  “The findings of this report indicate that we all must do more to get the message out to our young people that substance abuse is harmful to their health and happiness.”

Exposure to prevention messages provided in school settings were associated with lower rates of current substance abuse.  The level of exposure to these messages, however, did not differ significantly between 2002 (71.4 percent) and 2007 (70.2 percent).

The report found mixed results regarding the association between media substance use prevention messages.  As seen below, the prevalence of current cigarette and illicit drug use was lower among adolescents who received prevention messages through media sources, than those who had not.  However, the opposite was true in terms of current alcohol use:

• Cigarettes (10.8 percent vs. 13.4 percent)
• Illicit Drugs (10.1 percent vs. 11.9 percent)
• Alcohol (17.2 percent vs. 16.4 percent)

Exposure to Substance Use Prevention Messages and Substance Use among Adolescents: 2002 to 2007, is drawn from SAMHSA’s 2002 through 2007 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) which collected data from a sample of approximately 135,000 youths representative of the United States civilian, non-institutionalized  population aged 12 to 17. 


The full report is available on the Web at http://oas.samhsa.gov/2k9/prevention/prevention.cfm. Copies may be obtained free of charge by calling SAMHSA’s Health Information Network at 1-877-SAMHSA-7 (1-877-726-4727) or go to http://ncadistore.samhsa.gov/catalog/productDetails.aspx?ProductID=18032.  For related publications and information, visit http://www.samhsa.gov/ .

SAMHSA is a public health agency within the Department of Health and Human Services. The agency is responsible for improving the accountability, capacity and effectiveness of the nation's substance abuse prevention, addictions treatment, and mental health services delivery system.


Page Last Updated: 4/3/2009