Prince Albert youth drug and alcohol use: a comparison study of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, and Canada youth

Abstract

Community Mobilization Prince Albert’s (CMPA) Hub and Centre of Responsibility (COR) had been dealing with high rates of youth arrest and referrals to treatment facilities stemming from youth substance abuse. To better help the CMPA craft policies to counter the high rates of youth alcohol and drug use, a study was conducted in June of 2012 that utilized a school survey of PA youth. Data were collected from four local Prince Albert high schools and compared with Saskatchewan and Canadian youth. Analyses of the data were conducted using logistic regression and bivariate correlation. The following paper will provide an overview of the study and explain why youth substance abuse was chosen for this study. Later sections will examine how the Prince Albert school survey was formulated for comparison purposes with Saskatchewan and Canadian youth data obtained from the 2010-11 Youth Smoking Survey (YSS). This will be followed by an overview of the study’s key findings, along with results of logistic regression and bivariate correlation analysis and the study’s limitations. A final section will examine the implications of this study’s findings on youth substance abuse policy and programs for the CMPA Hub and COR, along with the city of PA.