Volatile Substance Misuse Among High School Students in South America

Abstract

This article summarizes data from a 2004 study of over 300,000 high school students (aged 13–18 years) in nine South American countries. A probabilistic sample targeted urban secondary schools, utilizing a self-administered questionnaire on prevalence and frequency of substance use. Multivariate analysis showed that volatile substances were the first or second most commonly reported substances used after alcohol and cigarettes in all countries (lifetime prevalence range: 2.67% [Paraguay] to 16.55% [Brazil]). Previous studies have highlighted volatile substance misuse among street children, whereas this study demonstrates that it is common among South American high school students.

Keywords :

• high school students
• volatile substance
• inhalants
• drug use
• South America
• loló
• lança

THE AUTHORS

Marya Hynes-Dowell received her M.H.S. in Public Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Hygiene in 1997. Since then she has been working in the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) in its research and analysis unit, known as the Inter-American Observatory on Drugs (Spanish acronym OID), where she develops and promotes programs to study the epidemiology of drug use, and other scientific research on drug use in Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition, Marya manages the OID's Research Development and Training Program, which involves several collaborative projects with NIDA. She is currently pursuing her doctorate in Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. Her areas of interest are the epidemiology of substance abuse, and treatment needs among drug users. Marya enjoys training for marathons and triathlons and is currently learning Tae Kwon Do from her two children, Fiona (aged 8, bo-black belt) and Pippin (aged 5, yellow belt).

Pedro Mateu-Gelabert, Ph.D., is a sociologist specializing in urban ethnography with over 15 years of experience in qualitative research both in New York City and abroad. Dr. Mateu-Gelabert is currently Principal Investigator of a NIDA developmental project aimed at training injecting drug users in strategies to avoid HIV and HCV infections at the National Development and Research Institutes, Inc. (New York, USA).

Helena Maria Taunhauser Barros, M.D., Ph.D., is a Professor of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology at the Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre and coordinator of VIVAVOZ, the National Service for Information and Orientations about Drugs in Brazil. Her research has focused on studying factors that influence the acquisition and relapse of drug abuse, using both clinical and experimental paradigms. She has a special interest in studies regarding the misuse of volatile substances, comparing the trends of use and effects on groups of homeless children and in females. Another interest is the effectiveness of telephone-based interventions for drug abstinence in Brazilian clinical settings with funding from Conselho Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia, Conselho de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Ensino Superior e Secretaria Nacional de Políticas sobre Drogas. Dr. Barros is a member of the Latin American epidemiology group REDLA, Society for Neuroscience, Sociedade Brasileira de Farmacologia e Terapêutica (SBFTE), and Sociedade Brasileira de Neurociências e Comportamento (SBNEC).

Jorge Delva, Ph.D., is an Associate Dean for Research and Professor in the School of Social Work, University of Michigan. He conducts research focused on understanding trends and effects of individual risk and protective factors on substance use while taking into account neighborhood and other contextual level factors. He is particularly interested in how these factors manifest themselves among racial and ethnic minority families and communities and among diverse cultural groups in the United States and abroad. His work has been funded by national (i.e., NIH, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) and international (i.e., Swedish Medical Research Council, Organization of American States) organizations. He was a founding co-director and director of the School of Social Work Vivian A. and James L. Curtis Research and Training Center and served as an associate director of educational programs for the University of Michigan Center for Global Health. He is a mentor in several NIH pre- and post-doctoral training grants and is a faculty associate with the Center for Global Health and the Institute for Social Research. He also enjoys practicing martial arts, paddling outrigger canoes, and rowing. He is married and has two mischievous daughters.