Purpose
The purpose of the European Substance Use Survey is to obtain a precise and nuanced picture of European school students’ behavior and habits regarding alcohol, smoking, illicit drugs, energy drinks, internet use, and various types of gambling. Additionally, the aim is to monitor changes in behavior and habits in these areas since 1995.
Method
Each survey includes a nationally representative sample of 15–16-year-old students, equivalent to 9th-grade students from randomly selected schools. Approximately 2,500 students from around 80 schools across the country participate. In 2024, students will complete the standardized ESPAD questionnaire online while at school. No names, personal identification numbers, or other information that could directly identify individual students are collected. Participation in the survey is voluntary. The project is registered in the research directory of the University of Southern Denmark and approved by SDU RIO. The National Institute of Public Health, SDU, is responsible for the data.
Reporting
Once data collection concludes in mid-May 2024, the Danish data will be submitted to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA). EMCDDA is responsible for compiling data from all participating countries, cleaning the data, and developing a shared international database. Based on this work, EMCDDA will publish an international report on the survey, expected in autumn 2025. Simultaneously, the National Institute of Public Health will produce a report based on the Danish data. The Danish report from the previous survey in 2019 was published in August 2020 and can be downloaded from this page.
Previous international reports are available at www.espad.org. You can find an online tool to visualize data from the surveys for all participating countries at https://data.espad.org.