Religiosity and adolescent substance use: evidence from the national survey on drug use and health.

Prior research indicates that religiosity is associated with lower levels of substance use in adolescence. The extant research, however, is limited by issues related to data quality and analytic strategy. The current research uses the National Survey on Drug Use and Health to further our understanding of the nature of the relationship between religiosity and substance use during adolescence. Results show that religiosity reduces the odds of tobacco use, heavy drinking, prescription drug misuse, marijuana use, and other illicit drug use. These associations are partially explained by respondent and peer attitudes toward substance use and, to a lesser extent, respondent psychological well-being. The influence of respondent substance use attitude is especially pronounced, explaining between 41% (marijuana) and 53% (tobacco) of the association between religiosity and substance use. In fully adjusted models, all mediators account for between 46% (marijuana) and 59% (tobacco) of the association between religiosity and substance use.