Terrance Fountain, an epidemiologist with the Ministry of Health’s Health Information and Research Unit, told The Bahama Journal recently that the nation does not seem to have gotten a handle on the problem of teenage alcohol abuse.
“When you look at the trends in just (alcohol) usage (among adolescent Bahamians) alone, no, there is no evidence that we have gotten a handle on the problem,” he said.
Mr. Fountain said the results of a drug prevalence survey among schoolchildren are “a realistic reflection of what’s going on in our society.”
The survey was carried out in the eight most densely populated islands of The Bahamas, and represents more than 90 percent of the nation’s schoolchildren, according to Mr. Fountain.
According to that survey, over half of the country’s 10th and 12th graders said they had used alcohol in the previous year, and more than a quarter said they had done so within 30 days of taking the survey. Forty-eight percent of 8th graders said they had used alcohol in their lifetimes, and more than 70 percent of 10th and 12th graders said the same.
Mr. Fountain explained that a number of programmes dealing with the treatment of adolescent alcohol abusers needed to be evaluated before he could say the problem was being adequately dealt with. He said that some people involved in these programmes are themselves questioning their effectiveness.
He also said that the problem is not a new one. The drug prevalence survey was carried out in 2001 and released in 2002, though Mr. Fountain said its findings are still “statistically representative.”
“The evidence is there that, yes, this (problem) has been around a long, long time,” he said.
Mr. Fountain, who describes himself as “the numbers guy” in his unit, said that while he has noted an increase in the availability of ecstasy – evidenced by an increased number of arrests for possession of the designer drug – he could not say that there is an increase in ecstasy use in The Bahamas.
“(Not) at this point,” he said.
Asked whether the incidence of adolescent alcohol abuse was particularly high, Mr. Fountain said not so. He said he has reviewed similar statistics for other Caribbean nations, which he said suggest that The Bahamas is not in as dire a position as some other countries.
“Our figures represent something like about two thirds of our adolescent population taking a drink over the past year, and in some populations, some other jurisdictions, this is approaching 80-90 percent,” he told the Journal.
He said that the alcohol abuse situation among Bahamian school-aged children reflects the situation facing the adult population.
According to Mr. Fountain, the survey shows that Bahamian school-aged children have not only a willingness to experiment with alcohol, but also a willingness to continue to use it.
Mr. Fountain said that research must be done to determine the enabling factors that would encourage adolescents to continue using alcohol, and the factors that would discourage them from using.
The survey also showed that access to and availability of alcohol was also a factor.
“We’re talking about access not only in adolescents being able to walk into a liquor store and purchase liquor, or access it through their homes, but also availability through their friends as well,” he said.
The “key stakeholders,” as Mr. Fountain put it, must educate children early and ask questions appropriately to determine whether a problem exists. These stakeholders include their parents and teachers, he said.
“As they age, they’re sort of weaned away from their parents towards finding out information on their own, by getting their own experiences, asking their friends,” Mr. Fountain pointed out.
Thus, he said, as children age, the most facile avenue for reaching them shifts from parents and teachers to their peers.
The results from a study by The National Institute on Drug Abuse in the United States, in coordination with the University of Michigan, show that in the U.S. alcohol is still by far the most widely used substance among schoolchildren in grades eight through 12.
By: Quincy Parker, The Bahama Journal
