Native American teens at higher risk for substance abuse

(HealthDay)—Native American teens are at greater risk of alcohol and drug abuse than other American teens, a new study finds.

Still, “we do not want these data to be used to stigmatize American Indian kids,” said study author Randall Swaim, director of Colorado State University’s Tri-Ethnic Center for Prevention Research.

For the study, Swaim and his colleagues used survey results from 2016 to 2017. These included nearly 1,700 Native American students at 31 schools across the United States in eighth, 10th and 12th grades living on or within 25 miles of a reservation.

The researchers compared their survey results with the University of Michigan survey “Monitoring the Future,” which tracks substance use and abuse across a sampling of U.S. adolescents.

For example, Swaim’s team found that eighth-grade Native American students were nearly five times more likely to use marijuana than…