The ESPAD study: implications for prevention

The European Schools Project on Alcohol and other Drugs (ESPAD) was concerned with the substance use, beliefs, attitudes and risk factors among over 50,000 16-year-olds in 26 European countries. Based on this data, the present paper focuses on critical issues in prevention and uses a country-level analysis with focus on the extent that contextual and cultural factors interact with factors influencing the use of alcohol and other drugs. The results indicate that: (ii an emphasis on risks and dangers may be a poor prevention strategy since many young people do not believe the widely accepted dangers of certain forms of substance use (e.g. cigarette smoking); (ii) misperception of norms in relation to substance use, that is, the belief that use of alcohol and other drugs is more common than it actually is, emerged in most countries with the exception of Nordic countries; (iii) the correlation between perceived access to substances and actual use depended on the substance involved; correlations were strongest for cannabis but low for alcohol; (iv) the measure of problem behaviour was used in the ESPAD study (truancy from school), is correlated with substance use in a way that is opposite to that predicted in problem behaviour theory; and (v) there were no indications that the potential restraining factors that were examined in this study (involvement in athletics and leisure) acted in a way that prevented people from experimenting with drugs. The results of this analysis suggests that far from our having identified a core set of universal influences that act to determine substance use, the importance of cultural and contextual factors have been underestimated as has the importance of the specific substance involved

Changing environmental influences on substance use across development

In contrast to many phenotypes that have been studied using twin designs, substance use shows considerable evidence of environmental influence. Accordingly, specifying the relevant environments and understanding the nature of their effects is an important research priority. Twin studies also have demonstrated that the importance of genetic and environmental influences varies across development for a variety of behavioral outcomes, including substance use. Here, we report analyses exploring moderating effects associated with parenting and peer characteristics on adolescent smoking and drinking, measured at ages 14 and 17. We find significant evidence of moderating effects associated with two dimensions of parenting (parental monitoring and time spent in activities with parents) on adolescent smoking, measured at two time points across development, but no moderating effects on adolescent drinking. Genetic influences on smoking increased, and common environmental effects decreased, as adolescents reported less parental monitoring and spending more time with their parents. Conversely, we find evidence that adolescent drinking is more strongly influenced by peer characteristics. The importance of genetic predispositions was increased among adolescents who reported more friends who used alcohol. These analyses illustrate the importance of incorporating measured aspects of the environment into genetically informative twin models to begin to understand how specific environments are related to various outcomes. Furthermore, they illustrate the importance of using a developmental perspective to understand how specific influences may vary across different ages, and across different phenotypes

Self-Reported Fears as Indicators of Young Children’s Well-Being in Societal Change: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

children, comparative, fear, social change, well-being,