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Classification of Students by Race and Hispanic/Latino/a/x Ethnicity Impacts Estimates of the Prevalence of Substance Use

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Abstract

Multiracial and Hispanic/Latino/a/x youth are rapidly growing populations in the United States. When considered in substance use studies, they are often treated as homogeneous groups despite important demographic and cultural differences. The current study explores how substance use prevalence may differ depending on how precisely race and ethnicity groups are categorized. Data are from the 2018 High School Maryland Youth Risk Behavior Survey (n = 41,091, 48.4% female). We estimate prevalence of past 30-day substance use (i.e., alcohol, combustible tobacco, e-cigarettes, and marijuana) for all combinations of race and Hispanic/Latino/a/x ethnicity. Substance use prevalence across the specific Multiracial and Hispanic/Latino/a/x categories showed a wider range of estimates than within the traditional CDC racial and ethnic categories. Findings from this study suggest that state- and national-level surveillance of adolescent risk behavior should add further measures of race and ethnic identity to improve researchers’ ability to increase precision of substance use prevalence estimates.

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Data Availability

Maryland Youth Risk Behavior Survey/Youth Tobacco Survey (YRBS/YTS) data were used for this study. The authors do not have permission to make them publicly available, but they are available from the Maryland Department of Health upon reasonable request. Data requests should be sent by email to mdh.yrbs_ytsdatarequest1@maryland.gov. Requests must include a description of what data is being requested and the purpose of the request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Nikardi Jallah, the MD YRBS/YTS team, and all study respondents for their time and for their contribution to the science.

Funding

Dr. Webb was supported by the Drug Dependence and Epidemiology Training Program (NIDA, 5T32 DA007292) during the development of this research. Dr. Goings received funding from NIDA during her work on the current study (NIDA, R01DA051578; PI: Trenette Clark Goings, PhD, LCSW). Dr. Johnson’s work was supported by the Johns Hopkins Center for Adolescent Health (CAH). The CAH is a Prevention Research Center supported by the CDC under the cooperative agreement #U48DP006384 (PI: Tamar Mendelson, PhD).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Lindsey Webb & Renee M. Johnson

  2. School of Social Work, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    Trenette C. Goings

  3. Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health, University of Colorado – Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO, USA

    Nicole R. Tuitt

  4. School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND, USA

    Ursula Running Bear

  5. Department of Counseling, Higher Education, and Special Education, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Delida Sanchez

Authors
  1. Lindsey Webb
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  2. Trenette C. Goings
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  3. Nicole R. Tuitt
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  4. Ursula Running Bear
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  5. Delida Sanchez
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  6. Renee M. Johnson
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Contributions

Lindsey Webb, Trenette C. Goings, Nicole R. Tuitt, Ursula Running Bear, and Renee M. Johnson contributed to the study conception and design and writing the first manuscript draft. Renee M. Johnson convened the authors and acquired the data. Material preparation and data analysis were conducted by Lindsey Webb. All authors commented on and edited previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lindsey Webb.

Ethics declarations

Ethics Approval

This is a secondary data analysis of publicly available surveillance data. The Institutional Review Board of Johns Hopkins University has confirmed that the current study was exempt and did not require full review.

Consent to Participate

Parents of all Youth Risk Behavior Survey participants provided passive permission for their child's participation.

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The Parental Permission Form describes that the results will be summarized and reported, and also that individual children will not be mentioned.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Webb, L., Goings, T.C., Tuitt, N.R. et al. Classification of Students by Race and Hispanic/Latino/a/x Ethnicity Impacts Estimates of the Prevalence of Substance Use. J. Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-023-01681-8

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