Substance Use and Abuse in Durham County - Stablerack

Table 6 provides information on prescription drug use among middle school and high school
students. Five percent of middle schools and 22% of high school students have ever taken a
prescription drugs without a doctor’s prescription.
[Table 6]
Prevalence of prescription drug use among Durham middle and high school students in 2007,
2009 and 2011
Have you ever taken a prescription drug such as
OxyContin, Percocet, Demerol, Adderall, Ritalin,
or Xanax without a doctor’s prescription?
2007
(% yes)
2009
(% yes)
2011
(% yes)
Middle School 3.9 3.3 5.3
High School 12.7 17.1 21.7
Source: Durham Youth Risk Behavior Survey
Sig difference
between
2009 & 2011
no significant
difference
no significant
difference
Alcohol
Prevalence of Binge and Heavy Drinking Among Adults
Indicators:
Number and percent of individuals who have participated in binge drinking in the past 30
days.
Number and percent of individuals who report heavy drinking.
Relevance: Alcohol abuse is associated with binge drinking (adults having five or more drinks on
one occasion), heavy drinking (averaging more than one drink per day for women or two drinks
per day for men), and underage drinking. In addition, alcohol consumption during pregnancy has
been shown to have serious consequences for young children.
Data: Survey research on alcohol consumption in Durham County comes from the Behavioral Risk
Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) published by the CDC and available from the NC State Center
for Health Statistics (42). Data should be interpreted with caution as the number of respondents to
the BRFSS Alcohol questions is small, and some answers had less than 50 respondents answer yes.
Findings from the 2011 BRFSS are not comparable to results from previous years due to changes
in the weighting methodology and the question wording. Therefore, the results for 2011 are
presented separately from the figures that track change over time.
See http://www.cdc.gov/brfss/annual_data/annual_2011.htm for more detailed information
about these changes.
Substance Use and Abuse in Durham County 44