One recent study illustrates both progress in studying the relationship of child abuse to subsequent drug abuse and the difficulty in gathering data that specifically address that relationship. The study found a significant statistical association between inhalant abuse and the abusers' reports that they were abused as children. However, the data do not demonstrate a causal relationship between the two, says Dr. Michael Fendrich of the University of Illinois at Chicago, the study's principal author. Evidence of a causal role for child abuse would require more data to substantiate that the onset of child abuse occurred before the onset of inhalant abuse, he points out. The fact that most data marking a trail from child abuse to drug abuse are collected retrospectively poses a variety of problems for researchers.
Investigators recognize that memory is subjective.
Also, drug abusers may choose consciously to emphasize the role of parents or others in their retrospective accounts of events leading to their drug abuse. Thus, researchers, may seek additional data from other sources, such as juvenile court records of child abuse cases. Dr. Cathy Spatz Widom of the State University of New York at Albany is comparing rates of drug abuse between a group of adults who had court-substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect and a control group of their childhood peers who did not have such records. Her initial findings show little difference in rates of drug abuse between the two groups. She recognizes that other factors are, of course, involved.