While the decline in substance use is viewed as positive news, the researchers are unsure if it’s a trend that will continue.
(Lauren Chapman/IPB News)
Over the past two years, some of the largest decreases in substance use among Indiana youth in over 30 years have been documented in a recurring survey.
The 2022 Indiana Youth Survey, a biennial survey administered by Prevention Insights, also found that fewer children in grades 6-12 reported using a substance in the last month in 2022 than in 2020, according to an Indiana University report.
The survey results, which came from more than 90,000 responses from 323 schools, represent some of the largest decreases in substance use since the survey’s inception and align with national declines.
Ruth Gassman, executive director of Prevention Insights, said the study's most significant findings were that among substances, there has been a 30-year low in reported alcohol, cigarette and marijuana use.
The survey results, she said, were surprising. But she acknowledged our society has experienced unprecedented events over the past few years, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Which we feel probably, but we don't have proof of, has something to do with this decrease in substance use.” Gassman said.
Gassman said the researchers could speculate that the decrease was affected by changes in adolescent daily life due to the pandemic and the possibility of fewer opportunities for students to socialize with peers who use drugs.
“Another possibility is that students have less unsupervised time after school, if parents are working from home,” Gassman said.
Mikyoung Jun, an assistant research scientist at Prevention Insights, said the researchers have never seen a drop as big as the one between the last survey and the more recent one.
“Between 2020 and 2022, we observed the biggest drops since ‘91,” Jun said.
Jon Agley, deputy director of research at Prevention Insights, said some of the sharp two-year decline may be a continuation of a slow, long-term, downward trend.
“I think there's an interest in understanding how much of that was, you know, a localized really sharp decline and how much of that was just this kind of low decrease,” Agley said.
In 2020, Agley said, alcohol use among 12th graders in the past month was sitting around 30%, which was down from slightly under 60% of 12th graders in 1991. In 2018, he said, the rate of 12th graders who used alcohol in the previous month was slightly above 30%.
In 2022, Agley said, the rate dropped to just below 20% showcasing a sharp decline.
“We saw that long-term trend,” Agley said. “But in the years since we've been working on the survey, we've never seen a prevalence drop this sharp for many substances in grades.”
Agley said a large drop is usually a couple of percentage points so this year is definitely an outlier.
The survey also found that students across all grade levels had reported having moderately increased feelings of depression and other negative mental health indicators when compared to 2020.
In 2022, 35.2% of 6th graders reported feeling sad or hopeless every day for two weeks or more in a row during the past year, an increase from the 28.9% in 2020.
“That's a pretty stark increase,” Agley said.
Calling attention to the mental health question, Agley said, also comes with the same caveats as the other data as with declines: it takes time to understand what is going on.
“It could be a single upward kind of blip on the radar, or it could be a trend and we just won't know,” Agley said.
While the decline in substance use is viewed as positive news, the researchers are unsure if it’s a trend that will continue.
“It may be just because … of the COVID-19 pandemic and so it could just be an isolated finding for a short period of time,” Gassman said.
The researchers, she said, will be able to begin looking to see if this decrease continues or was just an episodic downturn when the survey is conducted again in 2024.
