{"id":20138,"date":"2026-07-28T19:00:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T14:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=20138"},"modified":"2026-07-28T19:00:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T14:00:16","slug":"federal-survey-shows-promising-trends-for-youth-mental-health-and-drug-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=20138","title":{"rendered":"Federal survey shows promising trends for youth mental health and drug use"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"prism-article-body\">\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">A key U.S. government report on mental health, substance use and addiction showed continued improvements in several metrics, especially among young people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">There was some uncertainty about the future of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health last year, when the entire 17-member team responsible for it was <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/health-human-services-layoffs-restructuring-rfk-jr-ec4d7731695e4204970c7eab953b2289\">laid off<\/a> by the Trump administration. But the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration released the latest report Monday, with data that lets researchers look at trends from 2021 to 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Fewer adolescents aged 12 to 17 reported using tobacco, alcohol, marijuana and binge drinking in the previous month, the survey found. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">And in the past year, fewer in that age group reported: <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u2014 illicit drug and marijuana use <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u2014 starting drinking alcohol, vaping or marijuana <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u2014 substance, alcohol or drug use disorders<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Adolescents also saw declining trends for major depressive episodes and fewer reported serious thoughts of suicide, making a suicide plan and attempting suicide.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Young adults aged 18 to 25 saw similarly favorable trends.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Still, many young people face mental health challenges. Nearly 20% of adolescents surveyed had moderate or severe anxiety symptoms in the previous two weeks, compared with about 7% of adults over the age of 18.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Overall, the survey found more than half of people over 12 used an illicit drug, drank alcohol, used tobacco or vaped nicotine in the previous month. That includes 44% who drank alcohol, 16% who used a tobacco product, 10% who vaped nicotine and 16% who used an illicit drug.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The trends among young people are promising, but &#8220;there&#8217;s still a lot of work to be done,&#8221; said Robyn Oster, policy director for the Partnership to End Addiction.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cNearly 45 million people still have substance use disorder and still not nearly enough people are getting treatment,\u201d Oster said. \u201cIt\u2019s still well over 80% of people who needed it did not get substance use treatment in the past year, let alone quality treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">___<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A key U.S. government report on mental health, substance use and addiction showed continued improvements in several metrics, especially among young people. There was some uncertainty about the future of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health last year, when the entire 17-member team responsible for it was laid off by the Trump administration&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.abcnewsfe.com\/a\/6fb34776-15e7-40b2-877f-3e6a8c31e909\/wirestory_19d7638073fe40c7f36766b97e826349_16x9.jpg?w=1600","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}