PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

L C Gould

Publications and source records attributed to L C Gould.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

Sequential patterns of multiple-drug use among high school students.

Only recently have multiple-drug use studies involving more than heroin and marijuana begun to be reported in the literature. Four of these studies have found evidence that multiple-drug use is a progressive phenomenon, although the particular pattern of multiple-drug use reported in different populations varies somewhat. This study examines the patterns of multiple-drug use reported by a random sample of 1,094 high school students living in greater New Haven, Conn in the 1972-1973 academic school year. Scalogram analysis reveals a progressive relationship for nine drugs: alcohol, marijuana, hashish, barbiturates, amphetamines, LSD, mescaline, cocaine, and heroin. Cigarettes and glue were not found to play a part in this pattern. The temporal order in which respondents reported that they had begun using each drug supports the results of scalogram analysis only in part.

Adolescent↗

Biasing factors in the measurement of trends in heroin use.

A number of articles concerned with the epidemiology of heroin use which have appeared recently report that there has been a major "epidemic" of heroin use in the United States in the past decade and that the epidemic has been subsiding since about 1970. An examination of a number of biases inherent in the indirect measures of heroin use with which these conclusions have been reached and a growing body of direct, population-wide survey data indicates that these conclusions are not wholly warranted, and that if there was any epidemic of heroin use at all it was probably rather modest in intensity.

Adolescent↗

The relationship between drug education programs in the Greater New Haven schools and changes in drug use and drug-related beliefs and perceptions.

This study presents a broad epidemiological approach to evaluation of drug education. Data on adolescent drug use and on drug-related beliefs and perceptions, collected yearly over a three-year period in 33 schools in the Greater New Haven area, were analyzed in relation to information on drug education programs in these schools. Changes in the general prevalence rates for the study period (1970-1973) and with age were the background against which the effects of the independent variable--presence or absence of specific drug education activities in the various schools--were explored. While the overall evidence suggested that drug education does not have a strong, across-the-board influence on either drug use rates or beliefs and perceptions, more modest and specific effects were noted which have implications for drug education.

Adolescent↗