2011 ESPAD report : Substance use among students in 36 European countries : summary

The main purpose of the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) is to collect comparable data on substance use among 15- to 16-year-old European students in order to monitor trends within as well as between countries. So far, five data-collection waves have been conducted in the framework of the project. The first study was carried out in 26 countries in 1995, while data collection in 2011 was performed in 37 countries. However, results for 2011 are available only for 36 countries, since the Isle of Man collected data but unfortunately did not have the possibility to deliver any results. This summary presents key results from the 2011 survey in the ESPAD countries as well as findings regarding the long-term trends. An initial section gives a short overview of the methodology. Independent research teams in the participating countries form the basis of the collaborative project. In the 2011 ESPAD data collection, more than 100 000 students took part in the following countries: Albania, Belgium (Flanders), Bosnia and Herzegovina (Republic of Srpska), Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, the Faroe Islands, Finland, France, Germany (five Bundesländer), Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, the Russian Federation (Moscow), Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. Spain, like the United States, is not an ESPAD country. However, as a result of close collaboration with the ESPAD project since 1995, data from the Spanish National Students Drug Survey have been included when comparable/feasible, and are available throughout the 2011 ESPAD Report