Classification of Students by Race and Hispanic/Latino/a/x Ethnicity Impacts Estimates of the Prevalence of Substance Use

Lindsey Webb; Trenette C Goings; Nicole R Tuitt; Ursula Running Bear; Delida Sanchez; Renee M Johnson

doi:10.1007/s40615-023-01681-8

Classification of Students by Race and Hispanic/Latino/a/x Ethnicity Impacts Estimates of the Prevalence of Substance Use

J Racial Ethn Health Disparities. 2023 Jun 21:10.1007/s40615-023-01681-8. doi: 10.1007/s40615-023-01681-8. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Lindsey Webb¹, Trenette C Goings², Nicole R Tuitt³, Ursula Running Bear⁴, Delida Sanchez⁵, Renee M Johnson⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA. Lwebb7@jhmi.edu.
² School of Social Work, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
³ Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health, University of Colorado - Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO, USA.
⁴ School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND, USA.
⁵ Department of Counseling, Higher Education, and Special Education, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.
⁶ Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.

PMID: 37341951
PMCID: PMC10733541 (available on 2024-12-21)
DOI: 10.1007/s40615-023-01681-8

Abstract

Multiracial and Hispanic/Latino/a/x youth are rapidly growing populations in the United States. When considered in substance use studies, they are often treated as homogeneous groups despite important demographic and cultural differences. The current study explores how substance use prevalence may differ depending on how precisely race and ethnicity groups are categorized. Data are from the 2018 High School Maryland Youth Risk Behavior Survey (n = 41,091, 48.4% female). We estimate prevalence of past 30-day substance use (i.e., alcohol, combustible tobacco, e-cigarettes, and marijuana) for all combinations of race and Hispanic/Latino/a/x ethnicity. Substance use prevalence across the specific Multiracial and Hispanic/Latino/a/x categories showed a wider range of estimates than within the traditional CDC racial and ethnic categories. Findings from this study suggest that state- and national-level surveillance of adolescent risk behavior should add further measures of race and ethnic identity to improve researchers' ability to increase precision of substance use prevalence estimates.

Keywords: Adolescence; Biracial/Multiracial; Hispanic; Latino/a/x; Substance use; Surveillance data.

Abstract

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