Prescription Drug Use

A study of national data suggests that teens in rural areas abuse prescription drugs at significantly higher rates than their urban and suburban counterparts. Teens in rural areas were 26 percent more likely than urban teens to have abused prescription drugs in their lifetime: 10.3 percent of urban teens reported lifetime misuse of prescription drugs, compared with 11.5 percent in suburban or small metropolitan-area counties, and 13.0 percent of rural teens. Rural youth who used prescription drugs non-medically were more likely to have dropped out of school, have a history of depression, or live in a single-parent household.