Risk factors in adolescent drug use: evidence from school surveys and application in policy

What are the risk factors in adolescent drug use? Can any reply be found in the school surveys and could this evidence be applied in policy? It is to these questions that the authors, Richard Muscat, coordinator of the Pompidou Group Research Platform, Thoroddur Bjarnasson, Patrick Peretti-Wattel, sociologists and Francois Beck, a statistician and sociologist, attempt to reply. They first compile the needs of political decision makers and then use the ESPAD (European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs) survey as a vehicle to conduct a more in-depth analysis of the risk factors for substance use in Iceland, France and Malta. Finally, the use of ESPAD data in science, the media and in public policy is tackled from the French experience.