In the case of heart disease, health experts identified risk factors, including smoking, obesity, lack of exercise, and a high fat diet. Today, almost anyone can list these risks, no smoking areas have greatly expanded, and everybody knows which foods on the menu are heart healthy. There is no reason the same principles will not work when it comes to identifying and publicizing the risk factors that increase the likelihood a young person will try or use drugs, and the factors that act as protections. Fragmented prevention efforts are not going to get you there. You need a comprehensive, coordinated approach.
Risk factors are consistent across race and cultural groups.
Risk factors for substance abuse are predictors of a variety of behavior problems. Reducing these factors will have a ripple effect on everything from teen pregnancy to violence. Hawkins said risk factors in families include failing to set expectations that are appropriate for the child s age, failure to monitor kids in appropriate ways, and excessively severe and inconsistent discipline. Family conflict, family history of behavior problems, and attitudes favoring use of substances, including alcohol, all have an impact. There are kids who successfully negotiated a bad environment because somebody took an interest.