International Article
Substance use in high school students in New South Wales, Australia, in relation to language spoken at home

https://doi.org/10.1016/S1054-139X(98)00131-1Get rights and content

Abstract

Purpose: To examine for the first time adolescent substance use by ethnicity, given the high proportion of migrants from non–English-speaking countries in New South Wales, (NSW), Australia.

Methods: Data from four surveys of NSW secondary school students in 1983, 1986, 1989, and 1992 were used for this analysis. The prevalence of substance use by whether English was spoken at home was stratified by sex and age using data from the most recent survey year. Adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were produced by simultaneous logistic regression, adjusting for sex, age group, and the interaction term of sex and age for each of these substances, and for each survey year separately. Data from 1989 and 1992 were pooled together to examine rates of substance use by ethnic subgroups which reflect migration patterns.

Results: The prevalence of smoking and alcohol and illicit drug use was consistently lower among NSW adolescents speaking a language other than English at home, compared with those speaking English at home in all survey years. Only the prevalence of solvent sniffing was higher among younger adolescents speaking a language other than English at home. Students from Southeast Asia showed consistently lower rates of usage of all substances compared to all other groups.

Conclusions: There may be different opportunities for the prevention of adolescent substance use among native English speakers to be gained from non–English-speaking cultures.

Section snippets

Smoking

Considerable research has studied adolescent smoking rates, with some studies examining the role of ethnicity. In the United States, there is consistent evidence from across different states that white students (16.1%) were significantly more likely than Hispanic and black students (7.7% and 4.6%, respectively) to report frequent cigarette use (2). Data from the Monitoring the Future Project (3) show that while daily smoking has been increasing since 1992 for both black and white high school

Alcohol

The pattern of adolescent alcohol use by ethnicity is less clear, although in the United States it would appear that Whites consume more alcohol than either Black or Hispanic adolescents. Whites in Years 6 and 7 had significantly higher lifetime prevalence of use of alcohol than Cubans, who had a higher lifetime prevalence of use than other Hispanics, who had a higher lifetime prevalence of use than Blacks (21). This difference between Whites and Blacks was also significant for alcohol use in

Illicit substances

The pattern of use of illicit substances by ethnicity would suggest a lower consumption among white U.S. adolescents. For example, lower consumption of marijuana and illicit drugs (e.g., crack, cocaine, PCP, heroin) by non-Hispanic adolescent Whites compared with Latino adolescent immigrants has been observed (24). Hispanic male (7.1%) and female (5.5%) students were significantly more likely than white and black male (2.6% and 1.6%, respectively) and female (2.0% and 0.6%, respectively)

Sample

Data from four surveys of NSW secondary school students in 1983, 1986, 1989, and 1992 were used for this analysis. Sampling procedures and survey designs were similar in each case. A cross-sectional sampling design was used to achieve a representative sample of NSW secondary school students within each of the 16 area health authorities in NSW Australia for each year the survey was conducted 26, 27, 28, 29, although the area health authority boundaries have changed over time.

The target

Results

Using data from the most recent survey year (1992), the prevalence of smoking and alcohol and illicit drug use was consistently lower among adolescents speaking a language other than English at home than adolescents speaking English at home. (Table 1). Only the prevalence of ever having sniffed solvents was higher in adolescents speaking a language other than English at home (36% vs. 30%). When stratified by age or sex, a similar pattern of lower substance use by adolescents speaking a

Discussion

The data reported here are the first systematic analyses of adolescent substance use by ethnicity in Australia. Contrary to expectations, they clearly indicate that in most cases, substance use is lower among adolescents speaking a language other than English at home compared with adolescents speaking English, after adjustment for age and sex; and that this pattern is consistent over time. These differences suggest that there may be clues for the prevention of substance use by adolescents in

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