Alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use among Asian American and Pacific Islander Adolescents in California and Hawaii.

As an aggregate group, the lowest rates of alcohol, tobacco, and other drug (ATOD) use are often reported for Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders (AAPIs), compared to other groups. However, the low rates are often based upon samples with small representations of AAPIs, or represented by only one or two AAPI groups. Consequently, reliable data on the rates of ATOD use among specific AAPI subgroups are severely lacking.

Substance use and abuse by Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders: preliminary results from four national epidemiologic studies.

Objective: The authors analyzed four recent large national surveys to assess the degree of use and abuse of a wide range of psychoactive substances across subgroups of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) and in comparison with whites.

Method: The surveys analyzed were the 1999 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, the 1992 National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey, and the 1995 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health In-School and In-Home surveys. The AAPI sample sizes varied from 900 to more than 4,500 across the four surveys.