Adolescence (ages 12 to 17) is a crucial phase of human development, during which females and males experience different biological, social, and cognitive changes. Findings from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) show that compared to adolescent males nationwide, adolescent females had significantly higher rates of past month illicit drug use other than marijuana. Females also had higher rates of current alcohol use, cigarette use, past year nonmedical pain reliever use, depression, and alcohol dependence.
Understanding the characteristics of adolescent female substance abuse treatment admissions can help to inform public health policy and build prevention and intervention programs that are gender specific.
Using the 2007 Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS), this report examines the characteristics of female substance abuse treatment admissions aged 12 to 17. In 2007, of the nearly 132,000 admissions aged 12 to 17, approximately 30 percent or slightly more than 40,000 were female admissions.
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