Brief report
Substance Use Among Military-Connected Youth: The California Healthy Kids Survey

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Background

Young people in military-connected families may be exposed to deleterious stressors, related to family member deployment, that have been associated with externalizing behaviors such as substance use. Substance use predisposes youth to myriad health and social problems across the life span.

Purpose

This study examined the prevalence and correlates of lifetime and recent substance use in a normative sample of youth who were either connected or not connected to the military.

Methods

Data are from a subsample of the 2011 California Healthy Kids Survey (N=14,149). Items in the present analyses included present familial military affiliation (no one, parent, sibling); number of deployments (none, one, two or more); gender; grade; and race/ethnicity. Substance use items assessed whether the youth reported lifetime use of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, other drugs, or prescription drugs; and recent (past 30 days) use of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and other drugs.

Results

Multivariate analysis conducted in 2012 revealed that an increase in the number of deployments was associated with a higher likelihood of lifetime and recent use, with the exception of lifetime smoking.

Conclusions

These results indicate that experiences associated with deployment of a family member may increase the likelihood of substance use.

Section snippets

Background

There is concern that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are associated with negative psychological and behavioral outcomes for children in military families.1, 2, 3 The increased number and longer duration of deployments for those serving exceed those during any other point in the modern history of the U.S. military.4, 5 The stressors associated with being connected to the military can predispose youth to both internalizing and externalizing behaviors, such as substance use, that have negative

Study Hypotheses

To our knowledge, to date, there are no large-scale normative studies published of adolescent substance use that focus on a comparison between those who are connected (via either parent or sibling service) versus unconnected to the military. Given the extant literature and theories of stress and coping, it is anticipated that those youth with parents or siblings who are actively serving in the military will have a higher lifetime prevalence of and recent substance use compared to those who are

Methods

The present study uses the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS), which consists of a core survey module that gathers demographic background data (e.g., grade, gender, and race/ethnicity) and inquires about students' health-related behaviors, tobacco use, alcohol use, drug use, violence behaviors, and school safety. A 39-item “military module” was developed to identify the needs and experiences of military children and was administered to 21,740 students in the 5th, 7th, 9th, and 11th grades

Alcohol and Other Drug Use

Those youth who reported having a sibling in the military had the highest prevalence of all lifetime substance use (Table 2). There were several associations between substance use prevalence and military connection. Specifically, lifetime alcohol (chi-square=12.2, p=0.002); marijuana (chi-square=9.7; p=0.008); and prescription (chi-square=6.5; p=0.04) drug use showed variation according to military-connection status. No differences were found in prevalence of recent drug use.

Youth who reported

Discussion

To our knowledge, the present study is the first to examine the prevalence of substance use among youth in families connected versus not connected to the military, in normative settings such as schools. Further, this study is one of the first to examine the impact of military connection via both parental and sibling service. The results show that overall, military-connected youth have a higher prevalence of substance use. The prevalence of lifetime use of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, other

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