Alcohol and marijuana use among adolescents: Long-term outcomes of the class of 1989 study

Abstract

The Minnesota Heart Health Program (MHHP) is a population-wide research and demonstration project designed to reduce cardiovascular disease in three educated communities (1980–1993) compared to three matched reference communities. The Class of 1989 Study, a substudy of the MHHP, collected self-reported data in one educated and one matched reference community. All sixth graders enrolled in both communities were invited to participate in a baseline survey in 1983, and that grade cohort was surveyed annually throughout junior high and high school until 1989. Students received interventions designed to favorably influence their smoking, physical activity levels, and eating behavior each year from 1983 to 1987. As part of this five-year intervention, a program addressing smoking, alcohol use, drinking and driving behavior, and marijuana use was implemented during the school year of 1985–1986, when students were in ninth grade.

Using the school as the unit of analysis, we found that students in the intervention community in 1986 reported fewer occasions on which they had been drinking alcohol in the past 30 days than did students in the reference community. Furthermore, students in the intervention community reported less problem drinking in the previous two weeks and less driving after drinking than did students in the reference community. These positive intervention effects were not maintained through twelfth grade.