Promoting a positive ethos in schools, in which students are more engaged and enjoy good relationships with their teachers, can lead to lower levels of substance abuse and teen pregnancy, according to a study which appears in the British Medical Journal.
A team led by Dr. Chris Bonell from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine's Centre for Research on Drugs and Alcohol Behaviour found that improving school ethos to combat disaffection among pupils should be viewed as a promising complement to classroom-based interventions such as substance-misuse and sex-education interventions. Such interventions are the norm in schools and can have positive effects, but systematic reviews have shown that these are small, inconsistent and generally not sustained.
Young people's substance abuse and teenage pregnancy are major public health problems. School-based surveys indicate that a third of English fifteen year olds have taken illegal drugs in the last year and about a quarter use them monthly or more. Among the 40% of fifteen year olds who drink alcohol, average weekly consumption is over ten units. A quarter of fifteen year olds smoke. Teenage pregnancy rates in the UK are the highest in western Europe.