Alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use among military and non-military connected youth

Substance use predisposes youth to various negative health outcomes and social consequences. This is of particular interest among military-connected youth in the United States. The present study sought to explore predictors of lifetime and recent substance use in a normative sample of military and not military-connected youth. Data are from a sub-sample of the California Healthy Kids Survey. The final sample consisted of 14,149 youth (13.3% military-connected). Items included in the present analyses included: present familial military affiliation (no one, parent, sibling), number of deployments (none, one, two or more), gender, grade, and race/ethnicity. Substance use items assessed whether the youth reported lifetime use of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, other drugs, and prescription drugs; and recent (past 30 days) use of alcohol tobacco, marijuana and other drugs. Logistic regression analysis revealed that military connection (parent or sibling compared to not connected) was not significantly associated with substance use. However, increasing numbers of deployments was significantly associated with higher likelihood of lifetime and recent use with the exception of lifetime smoking. For example, each increase in deployment resulted in a 34% increase in the likelihood of recent use of other drugs (OR=1.34, 95% CI=1.20-1.50) and a 14% increase in lifetime use of prescription drugs (OR=1.14, CI= 1.06-1.24). These results may be an indicator that it is not the military connection itself but the experiences associated with deployment that increase the likelihood of substance use. Interventions should target adaptive coping strategies to aid military-connected youth in handling multiple deployments of their family member.