Students often drink alcohol at their highest levels in college. It is suggested that students with the most severe drinking problems begin drinking by or in high school, but studies on high school drinking tend to focus on students who have academic problems and are not college-bound. The purpose of this study was to examine high school drinking…

In spite of policy bans and recommendations against spit tobacco (ST) use, baseball athletes have demonstrated ST prevalence rates ranging from 34% to 50% in high school, 42% in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and 50% in the professional ranks. To evaluate enforcement of ST bans, high school baseball coaches in North Carolina…

Truant youths frequently experience family problems, emotional/psychological issues, substance misuse, and delinquency. They are likely engaging in alcohol use and sexual risk behavior at a higher rate than the general youth population. Early intervention services would benefit them, their families, and society. We present interim findings from an…

Substance use and sexual risk behaviors are common among adolescents, but research has focused attention on alcohol use. Much less is known about the relationship of marijuana use and sexual risk behavior among high-risk, especially truant, youths. We report interim findings from a NIDA-funded experimental, brief intervention (BI) study involving…

Two hundred twenty-six first-year students enrolled at a large, public Midwest university and deemed to require an emergency transport for a potential alcohol overdose completed a brief questionnaire on the student's perceptions of why the event occurred, what might have happened to prevent the overdose situation, and personal assessment of…

Purpose: Prevalence estimates for drug use health risk behaviors among high school students are widely available, but relatively few studies describe how and to what extent these risk behaviors occur together. Furthermore, little research has examined whether the co-occurrence of health risk behaviors varies by key demographic characteristics such…

Peer and parent influences on alcohol use and related risky behaviors were examined in a sample of late-adolescent (M = 17.3 years; SD = 1.11 years) urban youths. Participants (N = 400) completed an online measure assessing peer influences of alcohol use and alcohol offers and also parental influences of rules against alcohol use and perceived…

This study addresses the association of diverse individual variables, traditionally associated with sexual risk practices in the general population, with sex under the influence of alcohol in adolescents with divorced parents. A sample of 132 adolescents provided information about their knowledge and attitudes toward HIV/AIDS and sexual risk…

This article describes the use of a Neuro Linguistic Program (NLP) in an antismoking campaign and studies how successful this campaign was according to secondary school students. This campaign was carried out in a small town in northern Finland as an intensive three-day-long campaign. The data consisted of the essays and interviews of those…

Internalizing symptoms (withdrawn/depressed and anxious/depressed), measured by the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), were examined as related to the development of externalizing problems, a pathway to risky behavior. A cross-section of children ages 6 to 15 was drawn from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development's (NICHD) Study…

A range of research has recognized the benefits of optimism in a variety of health-related outcomes. Pessimism has received less attention but may be a distinct concept that is uniquely related to certain health behaviors, including drug use. The present study examined relationships between optimism and pessimism and alcohol use trajectories of…

Background: High school students involved in athletics may face additional stressors and engage in more problematic behaviors, such as drinking, dieting, and gambling, than non-athletes, especially as they near the end of their high school experience. Studies have, in general, found mixed results as to whether sports serve a protective factor or…

Objective: To investigate whether methamphetamine use is associated with sexual risk behavior among adolescents. Method: A cross-sectional survey of 1,561 male and female high school students in Cape Town (mean age 14.9 years) was conducted using items from the Problem Oriented Screening Instrument for Teenagers (POSIT) HIV Risk Scale. Results:…

Cigarettes are responsible for nearly 443,000 deaths per year in the United States. Eighty percent of adult smokers began smoking before the age of 18. In 2009, 17.2% of high school and 5.2% of middle school youths reported being a smoker. Research on school perceptions suggests that "engaged" students get more from school on all levels, including…

Four million individuals under the age of 21 admit to consuming alcohol in any given month. This is a significant statistic considering alcohol is responsible for most health problems related to drugs among adolescents. Research has shown that the high influence of alcohol advertising may encourage adolescents to emulate the behaviors seen in…