Full list of moderators. Note. Circle size is proportional to the number of studies including each category. PSU = peers’ substance use; ASU = adolescent’s substance use. Credit: Adolescent Research Review (2024). DOI: 10.1007/s40894-024-00247-x
A team at the University of Cordoba has analyzed more than 8,000 scientific papers on substance use and adolescence to look for the factors that protect adolescents from using them when they are encouraged to do so by those in their social circles, issuing a call for prevention policies to be updated to include vaping and social media.
According to the Health Ministry’s Survey on Drug Use in Secondary Education in Spain (ESTUDES 2023), the average at which young people begin to consume alcohol is 13.9 years of age; tobacco, 14.1; and cannabis, 14.9. One of the risk factors for substance use is the influence of those who are already using, and who share common characteristics, among young people’s social peers or equals, with these including classmates and other friends.
Not all young people, however, decide to take these substances, so the question arises of what factors protect an adolescent from using substances when others around them are. This question was also posed by Raquel Espejo Siles and Joaquín Rodríguez-Ruiz at the University of Cordoba’s Coexistence and Violence Prevention Studies Lab (LAECOVI), proving that although there is a great variety of protective factors (including individual, family and school ones), there are in fact two aspects that should guide prevention policies: age and type of substance.
The findings are published in the journal Adolescent Research Review.
Espejo Siles and Rodríguez-Ruiz confirmed this after a bibliographic analysis that began with more than 8,000 research articles, reduced to 50 after discarding those that did not meet the inclusion criteria set down in the systematic review. Based on all this scientific evidence, they concluded that age is essential, since an adolescent does not relate to substances in the same way at age 10 as they do at age 17, for example. Family or school factors, such as parental supervision and feelings of attachment to one’s school, protect against substance use in early adolescence, but they lose their influence and cease to do so as the years go by.
“As adolescence progresses and peers become more influential, prevention strategies should place more emphasis on peer culture. As of the age of 16, when their development is more advanced, they can address individual issues such as promoting self-control and responsible decision-making,” Rodríguez-Ruiz added.
Similarly, the type of substance must also be taken into account. According to all the studies analyzed, an individual factor like assertiveness is not effective against the separate consumption of alcohol, tobacco, or cannabis, but it does protect against polyconsumption.
In addition to taking into account the substance and age, prevention strategies should also be updated, taking into account vaping and the influence of social media. As Espejo Siles explains, “We are dealing with a changing phenomenon, with new forms of consumption and new ways in which adolescents relate to each other.”
The study also examines the need for studies to unify their criteria (such as defining adolescence in the same way) and to expand their geographical diversity, since most are based on American culture.
More information:
Joaquín Rodríguez-Ruiz et al, What Moderates the Link Between Peers’ and Individual’s Substance Use in Adolescence? A Systematic Scoping Review, Adolescent Research Review (2024). DOI: 10.1007/s40894-024-00247-x
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Identifying individual and social factors that help teens shun drug use (2025, January 15)
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