Substance Use and Employment among Youths Aged 15 to 17

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) asks persons aged 15 or older about their employment status during the past week and, if they were employed, the number of hours they worked. The survey also asks persons aged 12 or older questions related to their past month use of alcohol and illicit drugs. Findings from this report include:

An estimated 33.7 percent of youths aged 15 to 17 were employed either part or full time during the past week.
Employed youths were more likely than youths who were not employed to have used alcohol (35.9 vs. 24.4 percent), to have engaged in binge alcohol use (24.6 vs. 15.2 percent), and to have used an illicit drug (19.4 vs. 15.6 percent) during the past month.
Youths working 20 or more hours per week were more likely than those working 19 or fewer hours per week to have drunk alcohol (41.1 vs. 33.8 percent), to have binged on alcohol (29.0 vs. 23.1 percent), and to have used any illicit drug (22.3 vs. 18.5 percent) during the past month.

http://oas.samhsa.gov/2k6/employedYouth/employedYouth.htm

Publication Year: 2006

Publisher

CSAT Division of Systems Improvement
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT)
1 Choke Cherry Road
Rockville, md 20857
Phone: 301-443-5700
Website: http://www.samhsa.gov/centers/csat/csat.html
Email: info@treatment.org