Substance use among Hispanic and non-Hispanic adolescents.

This study compared lifetime prevalence data on substance use with demographic and psychosocial variables among 2,821 Hispanic and non-Hispanic white students from two Southwestern cities. Study findings revealed that ethnic-racial background factors were not the strongest predictors of substance use. Rather, when the analyses accounted for school grades and for maternal education, non-Hispanic youth had higher lifetime substance use rates than Hispanic youth. Study findings suggest that preventive intervention and treatment efforts for substance abuse problems among adolescents should consider sociodemographic risk factors as well as ethnic-racial factors.