Early Adolescent Substance Use in Rural Northern Michigan and Northeastern Wisconsin.

Abstract

Data concerning substance use behaviors, health beliefs, and peer substance use were collected from 265 middle school students in rural Northern Michigan and Northeastern Wisconsin in April 1983 and February 1984. Utilizing a nonequivilent control group design, the experiment tested the effects of a mixed cognitive-affective drug education program on subsistance use behaviors and attitudes as well as the relationships between health beliefs, peer use, and stated intention to use drugs in the future. The epidemiological data suggested that alcohol use in this population was 3 1/2 times greater than national averages, while marihuana use, cigarette smoking, and cocaine use were equal to national rates. The experimental group did not have lower substance use rates or more favorable health beliefs than the control group at the conclusion of the program. A positive correlation between peer and personal drug use was established. In addition, a relationship was found between health beliefs and personal substance use. A theoretical model applied to a subset of the sample for whom measures were available for both before and after the experiment period designed to predict future substance use based on the combination of health beliefs, peer use, past substance use and the expressed intention to use in the future was unable to explain a significant amount of the variance of post-experimental substance use. A revised model applied to the entire sample for whom posttest scores were available was able to account for a statistically significant amount of the variance of alcohol, marihuana and cigarette use after the experiment.