Non-College Student Young Adults More Likely to Abuse Prescription Drugs, Study Finds
Young adults aged 18 to 22 are more likely to abuse prescription painkillers if they are not enrolled in college.
PRESS RELEASE
Young adults aged 18 to 22 are more likely to abuse prescription painkillers if they are not enrolled in college, a new study published in
Social Psychiatry + Psychiatric Epidemiology
indicates. The study, “Nonmedical prescription drug use among US adults by educational attainment,” also found 13.2% of those who did not graduate from high school and 13.1% of non-college-attending students with high school diplomas reported nonmedical use of an opioid within the last year. Only 11.3% of college students reported the same. The authors of the study argue that the results prove a need to target prescription drug abuse prevention and intervention programs to young adults beyond college campuses. An abstract of the study and a full report is available on the
website.
