Abstract
The main purpose of the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) is to collect comparable data on substance use and other forms of risk behaviour among 15- to 16-year-old students in order to monitor trends within, as well as between, countries. Between 1995 and 2019, seven waves of data collection were conducted across 49 European countries.
The report provides information on the perceived availability of substances, early onset of substance use and prevalence estimates of substance use (cigarettes, alcohol, illicit drugs, inhalants, new psychoactive substances and pharmaceuticals). The descriptive information includes indicators of intensive and high-risk substance use, prevalence estimates of gambling for money, including online gambling, estimates of the proportion of students who gamble and display excessive or problem gambling behaviour, and prevalence estimates of social media use. and gaming, as well as of self-perceived problem use, by both country and gender.
In addition, overall ESPAD trends between 1995 and 2019 are presented. F