Reducing substance use improves adolescents' school attendance.
OBJECTIVE
Substance use initiation and frequency are associated with reduced educational attainments among adolescents. We examined if decreases in substance use substantially improve youths' school attendance.


METHODS
A total of 1084 US adolescents followed quarterly for 1 year after entering substance abuse treatment.


METHODS
Random and fixed effects regression models were used to differentiate the lagged effects of drug use from other time-varying and time-invariant covariates. Self-reports of alcohol, marijuana, stimulants, sedatives, hallucinogens and other drug use were used to predict subsequent school attendance, after controlling for demographic and drug use history characteristics, problem indices and other covariates.


RESULTS
Reductions in the frequency of alcohol, stimulants and other drug use and the elimination of marijuana use were each associated independently with increased likelihoods of school attendance.


CONCLUSIONS
Because years of completed schooling is highly correlated with long-term social and economic outcomes, the possibility that reductions in substance use may improve school attendance has significant implications for the cost-effectiveness of substance abuse treatment and other interventions designed to reduce adolescents' substance use.
Engberg
John
J
Drug Policy Research Center, RAND Corporation, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA. engberg@rand.org
Morral
Andrew R
AR
D000041:Absenteeism; D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D015233:Models, Statistical; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012574:Schools / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States