Adolescent drug abuse - Awareness & prevention

5/23/2014 Adolescent drug abuse - Awareness & prevention Home Current issue Instructions Submit article U M R Indian Journal of Medical Research Indian J Med Res. Jun 2013; 137(6): 1021-1023. Pl\/ICID: PNKZ3734705 Adolescent drug abuse - Awareness & prevention Bharath Chakravarthvf Shvam Shah, and Shahram Lotﬁpour The Center of Trauma & Injury Prevention Research- University of California, |rvine- Department of Emergency Medicine, University of California, Irvine School of Medicine, California, USA For correspondence.&#39;Emai|: bchakrav@uci.edu Copyright : © The Indian Journal of Medical Research This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The abuse of alcohol and illicit and prescription drugs continues to be a major health problem internationally. The United Nations Olﬁce on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reports that approximately 5 per cent of the world&#39;s population used an illicit drug m 2010 and 27 million people, or 0.6 per cent of the worlds adult population, can be classiﬁed as problem drug users. It is estimated that alcohol abuse results m 2.5 million deaths per year and that heroin, cocaine and other drugs are responsible for 0.1 to 0.2 million deaths per year. In addition to causing death, substance abuse is also responsible for signiﬁcant morbidity and the treatment of drug addiction creates a tremendous burden on society. UNODC estimates that worldwide costs related to treating drug abuse total $200- $250 billion, or 0.3-0.4 per cent of global GDP; additionally, it is estimated that only 20 per cent of drug users received treatment for their dependence in 20101. Existing studies have found a high correlation between adolescent abuse and becoming a problem drug user in adulthood;; therefore, it can be inferred that many problem drug users start abusing drugs at an early age. Additionally, accidental and intentional fatalities that are associated with drug and alcohol use represent one of the leading preventable causes of death for the 15 to 24-year-old population Alcohol and other drug use in the adolescent population carries a high risk for school underachievement, delinquency, teenage pregnancy, and depression; Preventative science postulates that negative health outcomes, including those resulting from substance abuse, can be prevented by reducing risk factors and enhancing protective factors; The general framework used hi this article is based on research presented by the National Institute of Drug Abuse (N IDA) and emphasizes the strategy of targeting modiﬁable risk factors and enhancing protective factors through family, school and community prevention programmes. Identify risk factors Prevention of substance abuse among adolescents requires awareness of characteristics that place youth at risk and targeting risk factors that are modiﬁable. Many studies have attempted to identify risk ﬁctors associated with adolescent drug and alcohol usage. In its 2010 report titled “Preventing Drug Use Among Children and Adolescents”, NIDA lists several factors that can enhance or mitigate adolescent risk for initiating or continuing to abuse drugs. These factors include exposure to drugs, socio-econornic status, quality of parenting, peer group inﬂuence and biological/inherent predisposition towards drug addiction; A retrospective study by Dube er ali measured correlations between the number of http://www.ncbi .n| m.ni h.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3734705/?report= pri ntable 1/4