Determinants in Substance Abuse Within

Adolescences: Social Factors and

Socioeconomic Status
By: Kelsi Ott
MDST 4983

Objective:
In todays society we struggle to recognize the causes of teenage deaths, substance
abuse and the effect that socioeconomic status has on these issues. While directing my
attention to these variables, because of the increase of intervention shows on television,
I found a much greater description that is so obvious but many are blind to. This factor is
socioeconomic status, and the social factors that run with different SESs. When starting
my research I was going to research with low SES adolescence and social factors that
trend with the status, but when researching low SES I also found interesting factors that
lead to substance abuse of high SES adolescence. Due to the amount of curiosity I
develop while watching interventions and wondering how teenagers could die from drug
abuse, I came up with a few research questions. My first research question, What
social factors influence these abusive habits? and my second research question, Does
SES have to do with the outcome of drug abuse?. Allowing low SES to be my
emphasis of research, I hypothesized that, There are certain social factors that
influence poor socioeconomic status that lead to higher percentages of drug abuse.

Method:
Based on the General Social Survey data, I drew my two variables, child drug/alcohol
abuse and what socioeconomic standing these children lie in. After obtaining my
variables I looked into peer reviewed articles. I started with an article that focused
strictly on low SES, homelessness, and incarceration. This articles main objective was
to evaluate adverse health consequences of low socioeconomic status plus the social
factors among drug users. In Socioeconomic Status and Substance Use Among Young
Adults, another peer reviewed article, focused on the undiscovered relationship
between socioeconomic status and substance use. These authors pulled their data from
the national Panel Study of Income Dynamics, which incorporates information from
parents and their children.

Results:
Through the reading of these articles I learned that, in fact, low SES will lead to higher
chances of drug use due to social factors incorporated into that status. With these
results, I was also able to learn that there are certain drugs more susceptible to certain
socioeconomic statuses.

Conclusions:
While conducting research I learned that there are social factors that lie within low
socioeconomic statuses. These social factors often times come about due to the
amount of stress that is put on these individuals to support themselves and in some
cases support their young families. If we find adolescences in low SESs having
children, they will be not only trying to achieve an education but also supporting a family.
Without an education, the struggle to survive will be much greater and could possibly
lead to a low economic standing that could be life long. We also find these teens, trying
to survive, turning to illegal activities due to the lack of resources to obtain decent
employment. This is all related to the first article, in which the authors looked into low
socioeconomic standings, homelessness, and incarceration.
Another article that I read looked into all socioeconomic standings and related those
standings to different drugs that were abused within SESs. This study also focused on
family background SES- income, wealth, and parental education- which all came
together to determine patterns for smoking, alcohol, and marijuana use among young
adults.
Smoking and SES had a nonlinear relationship, which rates increased until the 20th to
30th percentile. For drinking and heavy binge drinking, the relationship with income and
wealth was greatest at the lowest SES and highest SES. Drinking, binge drinking and
marijuana use was not high in adolescence whose parents possessed a college
education versus a high school degree. This is caused by the increase of time spent on
the job with parents who have less education, which keeps them away from the house.
Low socioeconomic status plus social factors that evolve through this status, does in
fact have an influence on drug abuse within young adults. One thing we do not want to

disregard is that young adults who are in a high socioeconomic status can are also
susceptible to drug abuse. The adolescence that come from wealth open up more
opportunity to obtain drugs.
To limit these abusers, we must open up community support systems that cater to these
certain groups that specifically address problems and contain them. Before we can
commit to some sort of positive change we must first fully understand where these
young adults are coming from and what they do and do not have access to.

References
1.

Patrick ME, Wightman P, Schoeni RF, Schulenberg JE. Socioeconomic Status

and Substance Use Among Young Adults: A Comparison Across Constructs and
Drugs. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. 2012;73(5):772-782.
2.
Galea S, Vlahov D. Social determinants and the health of drug users:
socioeconomic status, homelessness, and incarceration. Public Health Reports.
2002;117(Suppl 1):S135-S145.
3. Bergen SE, Gardner CO, Aggen SH, Kendler KS. Socioeconomic Status and Social
Support Following Illicit Drug Use: Causal Pathways or Common Liability? Twin
research and human genetics: the ofcial journal of the International Society for Twin
Studies. 2008;11(3):266-274. doi:10.1375/twin.11.3.266.